“I was convinced about my strategy, to start last on the grid,” he said. “If they [the other riders] didn’t follow me I’d start the race last and then I’d try to come back during the race.”
But here’s an important detail within that rule – if the pre-race bike swap was to use different tyres – you must serve a ride-through penalty during the race.
Presumably Márquez didn’t know that part of the rule, although who knows, he might still have won the race from a ride-through.
And anyway it’s all irrelevant.
Márquez had played with them in Saturday’s sprint and looked like doing the same in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
The track was dry, but the kerbs weren’t, because they’re painted, so rain can’t seep through.
Márquez leads Márquez, Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio on Sunday
Gresini Racing
Márquez was riding super-fast, establishing a new lap record on lap seven of 19. By the end of the next lap he was already 2.3 seconds ahead of factory Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia, who had got the better of an early skirmish with Alex Márquez on the Gresini Ducati.
Márquez started lap eight looking like he always does — on the knife edge but sitting comfortably. He swept into COTA’s rattlesnake section — which sends riders left, right, left, right, left, right, left in less than twenty seconds – flicked left, flicked right and down he went.
And not because he was going too fast, because he was moving into controlling-the-race mode. And taking things a (tiny) little bit easier had him run wide through Turn 3, which put him in the wrong place for 4.
“I lost it super-quick. I lost a lot — I lost the front and I lost a lot of points”
“When the gap got to 2.5 seconds I tried to control,” Márquez added. “I forced a little less in Turn 3, then in Turn 4 I was maybe too much on the kerb. I lost it super-quick, maybe it was a little bit wet. I lost a lot — I lost the front and I lost a lot of points.
“But racing is like this. I keep saying the championship changes in a millisecond. The positive is I’m only one point behind the leader, that’s the most important thing.”
Many pitlane people thought Márquez’s first crash of the year — a purling highside followed by a faceplant during COTA’S rain-lashed FP1 – would knock out any over-confidence seeping within after his clean sweep of the Thai and Argentine GPs.
Especially after what he said when he arrived at COTA, “I try to think in a negative way to avoid too much confidence that can create a situation we don’t like”.
It obviously didn’t but Sunday’s crash surely should?
Bagnaia may have been gifted his first victory of 2025, but to finish first, first you must finish, and even without the win he was already sounding much happier than he had at Buriram and Termas. His issues are all about fine-tuning engine-brake maps and set-up balance, he says, so he is slowly getting back to the feeling he had last year.
Márquez restarted after the crash and rode several laps with no right footpeg before withdrawing
Dorna/MotoGP
“It’s fantastic to be back on the podium after such a difficult period,” he said.
In fact this is Bagnaia’s best-ever start to a MotoGP season: more points in the first three races than ever before. People writing off the twice champion after the first two weekends were forgetting that he’s a slow burner, he builds confidence bit by bit. If and when he gets the engine brake to where he can fly into corners with huge speed, he will be fully back.
Bagnaia is still third in the points chase, 11 behind the older Márquez and 12 behind the younger, who is the second of the siblings to have led all three grand prix world championships.
Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) scored his first podium since 2023 with a rousing ride to third, with his injured left shoulder still not fully fixed. “A MotoGP bike consumes you,” he said.
VR46 team-mate Franky Morbidelli was way back in fourth and only just ahead of a dazzling Jack Miller, enjoying by far his best race since joining Pramac Yamaha. In fact his fifth place was the first MotoGP top five by a Japanese motorcycle since Fabio Quartararo was third in the 2023 Indonesian GP.
Luca Marini was the top Honda finisher in eighth, a few seconds behind Morbidelli, Miller, Marco Bezzecchi on the factory Aprilia and Enea Bastianini on a Tech 3 KTM. Marini’s fellow RC213V riders Johann Zarco and Joan Mir were fighting a bit closer to the front until they fell, trying to win back what they were losing to the KTM and Aprilia on the back straight by risky braking before the tight left.
Honda still stands second in the constructors’ championship, ahead of KTM, Aprilia and Yamaha. MotoGP never stops changing.