Winners
Ducati’s competitors
The news about Ducati abandoning its 2025 engine in favour of its proven 2024 unit must have come as music to the ears of its rivals. In fact, Ducati is also set to adopt the same chassis as last year, while there is a “real possibility” that the aero will be carried over from 2024 as well. This means electronics and suspension will be the only areas where Ducati will introduce any upgrades to its title-winning GP24.
Make no mistake, the GP24 was such a near-perfect bike that it remained a class apart from the field even when Ducati stopped introducing any updates in the second half of 2024. By all probability, Ducati will still have a sizeable advantage when the new season kicks off at Buriram in two weeks. However, the fact that Ducati has failed to bring a meaningful upgrade to its engine, chassis and engine at least leaves the door open for rivals to close the gap.
Ducati was so dominant last year that it won 19 out of 20 grands prix. While wins may still be out of reach unless we see a repeat of Austin, the other manufacturers now have a better chance of finishing on the podium on a semi-regular basis. The fact that there are two fewer Desmosedicis on the grid will only boost the cause of Aprilia, KTM and the rest.
Even if things don’t change much this year, it must be noted that Ducati will have to keep the same engine for the 2026 season as part of the engine freeze. That means the most dominant marque in MotoGP will effectively be running a three-year-old engine, while Honda and Yamaha - provided they continue to keep concessions - will be allowed to develop their motors right until the end of the current rules cycle.
GP24 runners
While it remains to be seen if rivals will be able to capitalise on the misstep Ducati took over the winter, the GP24 riders are certainly in for a strong year.
After a season in which there was a clear disparity between the two versions of the Desmosedicis, 2025 should offer a more equitable fight between the Ducati sextet.
When Ducati last fumbled with a new engine in 2022, the factory team switched to what was described as a hybrid bike, while other GP22 riders continued with the new but seemingly inferior motor. This time, however, all six bikes will carry the same engine, removing an important variable from the equation.
From what we saw in testing, Franco Morbidelli and Alex Marquez were already among the quickest riders over a single lap, while Fermin Aldeguer was the fastest rookie until the final day of testing.
Morbidelli already knows the GP24 well from his time at Pramac, while the younger Marquez was able to quickly adapt to the new bike, having topped the times in both the Barcelona test in November and the Sepang test in early February.
This further backs the suggestion that this season will be more akin to 2022-23, when riders with year-old Ducati bikes were able to win races and emerge as outside contenders for the championship.
Marquez brothers
Marc Marquez had already begun to grab headlines at Sepang, but it was at Buriram where he stole the spotlight from everyone else. Fastest overall with a time that was just 0.15s off the outright lap record, the Spaniard’s pace made him the overwhelming favourite for the start of the season - even if he wasn’t willing to admit that on the record.
Marquez was also among half a dozen riders to complete a race simulation on Thursday, with a 23-lap stint in the afternoon session raising quite a few eyebrows in the paddock. Admittedly, there isn’t a lot of data to compare Marquez’s long run with, but the numbers were still too impressive to leave others worried.
The pace he showed in pre-season testing will certainly serve as a confidence booster for him, given the lingering doubts he has had after his career-altering 2020 injury. While Marquez is probably right when he says he would never be able to replicate his form from the 2010s, even in his current physical state he has the potential to annihilate the competition.
Marquez is also likely to see his brother Alex much more often at the sharp end of the pack. The 31-year-old described him as the biggest surprise of pre-season, warning about the 2019 Moto2 champion’s potential now that he has a bike to his liking.
Alex Marquez had already been quite consistent in 2024, finishing a career-best eighth in the standings, but his results were largely overlooked by that of Marc.
The younger Marquez's premier class career hasn’t turned out exactly his way, and he is still awaiting a maiden win that escaped him multiple times during his rookie season with Repsol Honda in 2020. But if he can build on the pace he showed last year, he might start finally delivering on the lofty expectations people had from him in his early years in Moto3.
Yamaha
Ducati may have exaggerated when it described Fabio Quartararo as its main “opponent”, but it’s clear that Yamaha has made a major step forward this year.
Yamaha got a headstart over its rivals by bringing in its race riders for the Sepang shakedown, and then was among the quickest teams when the rest of the field arrived in Malaysia for the main test. Improvements were seen in both one lap and long run pace, driven by improved braking performance and higher top speed, and things should only get better as Yamaha’s new technical structure starts to bear fruit.
At the same time, there are still some long-running weaknesses that it is struggling to resolve. The M1 has been particularly slow in low-grip conditions and there was little progress on that front during the Buriram test. Quartararo also struggled with the front end of the bike in Thailand and it partly contributed to him almost a second off Marquez’s pace.
On the plus side, things are going well at Pramac, which has joined Yamaha as its new satellite partner. Pramac has also given a new lease of life to Jack Miller, who is enjoying the new setting and has quickly adapted to the M1. The Australian has the potential to play a key role in Yamaha's revival.
Honda
One can question Honda’s decision not to utilise its race riders in the Sepang shakedown, but by the end of testing at Buriram on Thursday, it was firmly inside the top 10 on the timesheets.
Like Yamaha, Honda is yet to fix some inherent weaknesses of the RC213V, with a lack of top speed and grip still holding it back. But the overall mood at Honda is incredibly positive.
Perhaps the biggest boost Honda received is that its factory riders Luca Marini and Joan Mir are finally happy with the upgrades it brought and are gelling with the upgraded bike. This is a drastic change from 2024, when both the marque's supposed leader Mir and newcomer Marini were outscored by LCR duo Johann Zarco and Takaaki Nakagami.
Mir has approved the direction Honda has taken after two disastrous seasons that made him consider his retirement, while Marini is now in his second season with the Japanese curve and doesn’t have to face the same difficulties he did when he first jumped on a Honda in 2024 after three years with Ducati.
The Yamaha vs Honda battle is also expected to get hotter, with Mir having matched Quartararo’s pace during a sprint simulation at Buriram.
Aprilia had to dodge several questions when it signed Marco Bezzecchi in June last year, as the Italian was going through a rough patch at VR46 at the time of the announcement. But based on how he has stepped up to the role in pre-season testing after Jorge Martin’s injury, Aprilia’s faith in Bezzecchi has already been repaid.
The Noale-based brand was more than happy with Bezzecchi’s feedback from day one, which meant it was easy for it to lean on him when Martin became unavailable.
Moreover, the 1m29.244s time he managed on the final day of testing was the fastest-ever lap set by an Aprilia rider at Buriram. This was particularly impressive as the Chang International Circuit has never been a strong track for Aprilia, with its long braking zones not suiting the RS-GP.
Braking is still an area where Bezzecchi feels Aprilia needs to improve on, but the progress it has made so far is already enough to mix with the Ducatis. That rookie Ai Ogura finished just three spots behind in seventh showed that the work Aprilia put in during the winter in anticipation of Martin is bearing fruit. And while it is unclear how long Martin will take to get to grips with the bike when he returns to action, Bezzecchi will be able to take full advantage of the improvements as soon as the season gets underway in Thailand later this month.
Losers
Jorge Martin
Martin had managed just 13 laps in the Sepang test when he high-sided at Turn 2 and ended up in the hospital. Missing almost the entirety of pre-season is always going to put a rider on the back foot, but to get so little running on a radically different bike is a huge setback that could put someone months behind schedule. Just ask Morbidelli.
Whatever the cause of the accident may be, the consequences are clear for Martin who now faces a race against time to recover from his Sepang injuries. Aprilia has a long-term goal with Martin, so would be happy to let the Spaniard take his time in adapting to the RS-GP, but there is no denying that it’s a disastrous start to his title defence.
It’s important to note that this is the first time Martin has switched manufacturers in his MotoGP career, so the learning curve that he is going to face when he returns to action will be incredibly steep. Even Bezzecchi hasn’t shied from admitting that he hasn’t fully adapted to the RS-GP after six full days of testing (including Barcelona), so one can imagine how long Martin would take to acclimatise to the bike when he has to understand its quirks during race weekends.
KTM (and Tech3)
The financial crisis at KTM’s headquarters was always going to have an impact on the performance of its racing team. While it's unclear where exactly KTM stands in the pecking order, early signs suggest it has fallen behind fellow European rival Aprilia.
Pedro Acosta was still doing his best on his factory graduation, while its stalwart Brad Binder can also be expected to pull something out of the bag when the season begins. But the real worry is the two Tech3 signings, who have largely been anonymous in pre-season testing.
The decision to drop both Jack Miller and Augusto Fernandez was motivated by a desire to get rid of the weak links in its line-ups. But the riders KTM has signed to replace them have faced a tough time on the RC16 so far.
Maverick Vinales still appeared to make a step forward on the final day of the running, buoyed by an improved understanding of the KTM’s braking, but testing ended a little too soon for Enea Bastianini. The Italian explained that he is still riding the KTM as if it were a Ducati, unable to understand its behaviour when he engages the rear brakes. His riding style is also preventing him from taking full advantage of the RC16 at corner entry, which is considered a particularly strong point of the bike.
Francesco Bagnaia has taken Marquez’s arrival at Ducati as a new challenge in his career. Having lost the 2024 title battle to Martin, Bagnaia feels beating Marquez would help him reclaim his crown as MotoGP’s top dog. But if pre-season testing was anything to go by, Bagnaia will have to bring his A-game to win a third title in the premier class.
Whether Bagnaia can beat Marquez to the title is a different question. What’s clear is that Marquez had a brilliant pre-season and Bagnaia is forced to play catch-up to him.
The contrast between the two riders was particularly evident at Buriram; while Marquez rose to the top of the timesheets, Bagnaia was forced to write off a whole day with a series of problems and “start from zero” again. The final day of the running did go smoothly for him, but by then Marquez had moved further ahead with his programme, widening the gap between the two. Bagnaia did get to complete some long runs, but not a full race simulation like Marquez managed.
While one should rule out Bagnaia at their own peril, his preparations for the new season haven't exactly gone to plan.
