A picture from earlier days in the Red Bull Rookies Cup – Esteve “Tito” Rabat (left) from Barcelona and his fellow Catalan Marc Marquez. The jeweler’s son later became Moto2 world champion, now rides in the WorldSBK on Yamaha and the son of a former truck driver can already call himself the best MotoGP rider of all time. Perhaps the most exciting chapter of his incomparable career is only just beginning.

Marc Marquez in BuriRam – the return of the king

What numerous experts and commentators had predicted came true in a highly impressive way on Saturday, March 1st of this year. Although many of them were way off the mark last year with their far too optimistic predictions about Pedro Acosta’s rookie season, everyone who called his compatriot Marc Marquez the favorite before the start of the 2025 season was apparently right. With the best MotoGP rider of all time, you can’t earn much by betting on another world championship title. This was the conclusion after the first points were awarded at the start in BuriRam on a historic first day of March. As in all tests of the new year, the exceptional talent with the number 93 on his Lenovo Ducati was in a class of his own in Thailand. Qualified directly into Q2 on Friday without any problems, Marc put his stamp on the field in qualifying and then in the afternoon sprint with absolute mastery, proving once and for all: The king is back!

The long-awaited first start of the MotoGP in the new 2025 season with, from the right, the two Marquez brothers Marc (Ducati Lenovo Team) and Alex (BK8 Gresini Racing), who quickly left the rest of the field behind with the Tissot Sprint Race. In the middle of the picture is Francesco Bagnaia, the reigning vice world champion, who lost almost 3.5 seconds to his teammate with the 93 by the finish.

Despite absence of world champion Martin – Bagnaia outclassed

The look on Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia’s face spoke volumes after the Tissot Sprint Race. Last year, the Italian lost the title fight to Pramac rider Jorge Martin and his own nerves just before the end of the season, but now he finds himself completely overshadowed by an opponent who is probably too powerful. Two days before, Marquez had kept his cool at the press conference and, as a newcomer to the most successful team of recent years, saw himself more as an apprentice to his Lenovo-Ducati teammate. However, for observers who have known him for a while, his confident look when he said these words spoke a different language. In the 13-lap sprint race, the 93 outclassed the entire MotoGP world elite, with the exception of his brother Alex. In contrast to WorldSBK, in which FIM and Dorna have been doing everything they can to favour Ducati for years (for more on this, see our article on the season opener in Phillip Island on this page), no one in the Prototype World Championship can claim that the undoubtedly lightning-fast Ducati is overwhelmingly superior. When asked about his new teammate just six months ago, Bagnaia confidently announced that he saw it as an advantage to share the box with Marc Marquez in 2025. If he beats him, it will be a special satisfaction for him and no one will doubt his own driving skills afterwards. Welcome to the sometimes unfortunately brutal reality, Pecco!

A brotherly double victory at the start of the season with Alex (face to the camera) and Marc Marquez. The younger of the two was of course the best private pilot and, as the only one who was able to follow the winner halfway, can look forward to this year’s record season with optimism. Provided there are no mishaps in the calendar for once, 2025 will be the first year that 22 races will be held in one year.

Stark contrast to WSBK – perfect balance in MotoGP

The fact that only the pilot makes the difference in the prototype world championship was demonstrated not least by the sensational debut of rookie Ai Ogura. The Japanese rider, like his role model Marquez, was extremely modest the day before when he was asked about his expectations in an interview following the second training session. However, there was no sign of this a little later in the Tissot Sprint Race, when he lost less than a second to Pecco on the podium on the Aprilia, which was still almost new to him. All manufacturers were in the points on the first day – this could not have been expected beforehand. But already in the Tissot Sprint Race, the classification underlined the balance of the season before last with 1000 cc in a very impressive way, before the displacement can be a maximum of 850 cc for the 2026 season according to the new regulations. Then, absurdities criticized by many drivers (including Marquez), such as the so-called start device, which lowers the rear end for better traction when starting the motorcycle, will finally be banned. What can happen when such technical gimmicks malfunction was observed at the Sachsenring, for example, when this happened to veteran Johann Zarco. Almost as a stroke of luck for the fast Frenchman, the mechanism, which had not been deactivated before turn 1 despite pressing a button, only came loose when an opponent in an Omega drove into the rear of the number 5.

Ai Ogura (Trackhouse MotoGP Team Aprilia) can be described as the sensation of the start of the year as a rookie after his first race, where he finished fourth in the Tissot Sprint Race. The always very modest Japanese rider is one of the biggest promises for the future. While fellow brand rider Bezzecchi lost all chances of a podium finish in the first few meters due to a spinning rear wheel, Ogura was Aprilia’s surprising trump card on Saturday. Their figurehead and newcomer Jorge Martin unfortunately had to sit out the first two laps due to a serious hand injury.

The 73rd season of the Motorcycle World Championship – a pleasure

In contrast to FIM and Dorna, we count differently because in the first three years of the road world championship launched in 1949, the best pilots and factories of the last pre-war years were not allowed to take part. For purely political reasons, and this a full four years after the Second World War, the FIM, which was already controversial at the time, had decided to exclude all Germans from participation. Pilots such as Schorsch Meier, Siegfried “Sissi” Wünsche and factories such as DKW and BMW had dominated the European championship up until 1939 and had won more than half of the races. For this reason, this truncated world championship before 1952 was a joke from a sporting point of view, just like the WSBK is today. What happened when this absurd rule was repealed can be read on this page under “History” in a richly illustrated and extremely comprehensive form. Everyone can form their own opinion on this, but the fact that MotoGP is currently experiencing a boom is undisputed. At the top is a man who, like in a fairy tale, appears to have regained strength as a former king after countless blows of fate in order to reclaim his reign. After 2024 repeated unfortunate and highly inappropriate statements by the former icon Rossi with his number 46, we have long since replaced our fan clothing and the 93 dominates.

Crowd favourite Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team) shortly before the start of the sprint. Having moved up from 10th place on the grid to 7th place, we can certainly expect a lot more from the fast Frenchman on the resurgent Yamaha over the course of the year. His new brand colleague Jack Miller from Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP unfortunately missed out on an even better ranking after starting from 4th place due to a fall, but underlined the competitiveness of the new M1.

The only downside of the new season – the oranges

While Pedro Acosta, who was hailed as a “rookie sensation” by many journalists and supposed experts last year, still has to prove that he deserves this title, very dark shadows are hanging over his employer and manufacturer. In principle, it is currently almost impossible for real fans to be happy about KTM’s successes. Since it became known that CEO Stefan Pierer, according to many financial experts, literally undermined the company he had led to its prosperity in recent years and ultimately drove it into the ground with fatal mistakes, hundreds of former employees who are now unemployed are facing a disaster. Not to forget the countless suppliers and other creditors who will receive a maximum of 30 percent of their outstanding funds, as was recently officially announced. Apparently there are still around a quarter of a million motorcycles that have been produced in stock and which now have to be sold below their value. The MV-Agusta brand, which the Upper Austrian acquired in an already hopeless situation due to his megalomania, is no longer one of them. Given this shameful background, KTM’s current performance can be described as questionable. Many are hoping for a change of colour for Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta in the factory team, as well as Enea Bastianini and Maverick Viñales at Tech 3, and hopefully for them to remain in the premier class of the prototype world championship.

Pedro Acosta’s departure at the Sachsenring 2024 – the undisputedly highly talented young Spaniard did not shine last year as many optimists had predicted. The KTM rider missed the points in 13 of 40 races (including the Sprint Race) in his rookie season. Like his teammate Brad Binder this year, he also remained winless, thus failing to live up to the high expectations placed on him.

The result of the first race of the 2025 season

In the absence of Jorge Martin’s number 1, Aprilia Racing test rider Lorenzo Savadori was at the start, who will also represent the world champion in Argentina two weeks later, as his broken hand will need plenty of time to heal completely. What was particularly pleasing about the opening race was the fact that, at least in Asia, Honda is obviously competitive again alongside Yamaha.

What happens next – first Argentina, then Texas

The fullest calendar in MotoGP history with 22 planned stops has at least one flaw. After the cancellation of the Grand Prix of Kazakhstan and India in 2024, Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta promised that there would be a race the following year. When the calendar for this season was published, no explanation was found as to why these two were suddenly missing. However, this was hardly surprising for insiders after numerous failures and mishaps on the part of the FIM and Dorna in their season planning over the past decades. Many European fans are all the more excited about the return of Brno and the new attempt with Hungary on Lake Balaton, if it really works out. Last year, the round at the Balaton Park Circuit, originally planned for August, was canceled at short notice for the WorldSBK, which is unlikely to be a good omen for the same period in 2025 in MotoGP. Before Qatar takes its turn, which this time is the fourth round instead of the season opener, there are the two Americas races at Termas de Rio Hondo and the Circuit of the Americas. The latter would be out of the question for us since a man has been elected president there who does not have the words decency and respect in his vocabulary.

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