We're only a handful of races into a 40-plus race MotoGP season in 2025, but if these early days are any indication, it's going to be an incredible year. It wasn't that long ago that most people probably wouldn't have thought they'd be seeing much of Alex Márquez on the podium. His brother, sure; of course.
But right now, as I write this, it's Alex who's sitting atop the current MotoGP World Championship standings. Marc is hot on his heels, and they'll likely be swapping positions at the top of the leaderboard if things continue as they have been. And honestly, could you have predicted this a few years ago?
The fact that the top five racers in the championship so far are all on Ducati variants isn't that surprising; after all, look how many different Ducatis are on the field. And, of course, look at who's riding all of them.
As you may or may not have noticed, though, the top non-Ducati rider in the championship at this exact moment is a Trackhouse Aprilia rider (not even a factory Aprilia rider; just like it's a satellite Ducati sitting at the very top right now).
Chances are excellent that Ai Ogura would be even higher in the rankings if he hadn't gotten disqualified due to a software issue at COTA, but could've and should've beens are unfortunately not the realities we live with.
To hear Ogura's Trackhouse Aprilia crew chief, Giovanni Mattarollo, tell it, he's an incredibly hard worker. Quiet, but one of those guys where you can practically see the wheels turning in his brain as he takes new information in and puts it into practice out on track. (That link is a video, incidentally, which we'd normally embed, only video embeds are apparently verboten in Dorna-land. Go watch it anyway if you haven't already.)
Part of how he got here, Ogura recently said in an interview with CNN, is because his first racing hero and role model wasn't some faraway MotoGP idol, as you might expect. While Ogura of course admired the greats like Valentino Rossi, he says the greatest inspiration and learning experience he had when he started racing was ... his big sister!
Like all successful MotoGP riders in the current era, Ogura started super young, and his family was heavily involved. You'd kind of have to be, honestly; motorcycle racing, even not yet at GP levels, isn't exactly the kind of thing where you can skip a few classes for practice, join the team, and then go to nationals in secret. Good fodder for a Disney Channel movie, maybe, but definitely not the way motorcycle racing works.
If you've never seen photos of young Ogura way back at the beginning, by the way, here's some fodder to inspire the next generation.
I don't think I'm overstating my case here when I say that I believe we're witnessing the rise of a major talent in the series. Yes, it's early days in the 2025 MotoGP championship, but if you're the type of person who's been paying attention to championships over the past decade (and longer), you know by now that every point counts. And rookies just don't usually do this well this early in their careers.
We're witnessing greatness unfold right in front of our eyes, and I think we need to take a minute to acknowledge it. I, for one, can't wait to see what the future holds in store for such a talent.
