virage du raccordement

MotoGP is about to start again after a well deserved summer break. Here’s a reminder and an analysis of what has happened in the first 12 rounds, before we go back to Spielberg.

notes

on the AFP concept

In this article, I use a concept which I’ve already used in past articles : the AFP, or average finishing position. As insinuated by its name, this value translates the average of the finish positions earned by riders throughout the season, emphasis on the finishing aspect of things.

It ignores the DNFs so it doesn’t give a full picture of how every Saturday / Sunday went for every studied rider but my goal is to look at what a rider was able to do when he was able to cross the finish line i.e. when he wasn’t hindered by another rider crashing him out or making a mistake himself (races rejoined aside).

on the Jorge Martin case

Following his various injuries, Jorge Martin only participated in two rounds this season (Losail & Brno) which lead him to only take part in two qualifying sessions, finish two sprints and one race.

I have included his numbers in this study but don’t be surprised if he’s missing at times or if I’m pointedly ignoring him, his averages made of only one or two data points are not worth much compared to what the rest of the grid has achieved in this first part of the season.

qualifying

That being put aside, there is much more to say about qualifying so far in 2025.

on Q1 and Q2

Q1/Q2 results

20 out of 22 riders have participated in Q2 at least once this season. The two riders who have failed to do so are Miguel Oliveira and Somkiat Chantra (both participating in 9 PR/Q1 sessions with their injury absences).

Only two riders have always directly qualified to Q2 : Alex Marquez and Marc Marquez. Two other Ducati riders have always survived Q1 when they had to : Pecco Bagnaia (Buriram and Brno) and Franco Morbidelli* (Termas and Silverstone). A fifth rider also participated in all Q2 sessions so far : Fabio Quartararo (surpassed Q1 in COTA and Aragon).

*Franco didn’t ride a bike in Brno due to his injury sustained in Sachsenring so he did reach Q2 in all the rounds he participated in (11) but not all the rounds that happened (contrary to the other 4 riders mentioned).

The other way around, 4 riders only ever got their Q2 spot thanks to a PR top 10 placement and never through a Q1 top 2 result : Enea Bastianini (10 Q1 appearances), Brad Binder (9 Q1 appearances), Jorge Martin and Pedro Acosta (both with one Q1 appearance).

The rider who has overcome Q1 the most is Raul Fernandez with 4 top 2 (Le Mans, Mugello, Assen, Brno). Then, we have 7 different riders all with 2 occurrences each.

Q2 results of the riders who went through Q1

On 8 out of 12 occasions (66% of the time), the rider P1 in Q1 out qualified the rider who was P2.

on qualifying positions

Qualifying position results

average qualifying position

Average qualifying position for each rider

With his 8 pole positions, Marc Marquez is dominating the rankings with his 1.8 average qualifying position (AQP) (the times he didn’t get pole, he was P2 three times and P4 twice). Alex Marquez is not that far behind with a 3.3 average to his name.

Behind the two brothers we have two riders with a really close average qualifying position (4.6 for the Ducati rider and 4.7 for the Yamaha rider) although their results haven’t been going the same way.

To close that top 5, a rider that is a little behind but with a gap to the rest of the grid : Franco Morbidelli with a 6.0 AQP. On 8 occasions, Franco qualified between P3 and P6. His other results are a P8, a P9 and a P10.

Still considering the AQP rankings :

• All 6 Ducatis are in the top 10,
• Pedro Acosta in the best KTM in P6 (8.3 AQP),
• Marco Bezzecchi is the best Aprilia in P8 (8.6 AQP),
• Johann Zarco is the best Honda in P9 (9.7 AQP).

On the other side of the rankings with riders who have been struggling in the qualifying exercise and have an AQP superior to 15.0 : Ai Ogura* (16.3), Miguel Oliveira (16.7), Enea Bastianini (17.5) and Somkiat Chantra (21.2).

*Ai Ogura had a pretty decent start to his season, qualifying in P5 for the first round in Buriram and also achieving a P10 in Losail and two P15 in Termas and Jerez. Things have been more complicated ever since he came back from his Silverstone injury (had surgery on his right tibia), always qualifying between P19 and P21 in the 4 rounds he raced after his comeback.

front rows

Behind them, the same duo as earlier : Pecco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo with 6 front rows each. Then, we have Johann Zarco with a P3 in Termas and a P2 in Sachsenring.

3 other riders have achieved one front row each so far : Franco Morbidelli (P3 in Aragon), Fabio Di Giannantonio (P2 in COTA) and Marco Bezzecchi (P3 in Sachsenring).

The only factory to not have achieved a front row yet is KTM. The closest they came to one was in COTA with Pedro Acosta qualifying in P4. Besides that result, both Pedro Acosta and Maverick Viñales have obtained several P5 qualifying results.

on polemen

Round	Circuit	Poleman	Sprint Result	Race Result
1	Thailand	M. Marquez	1	1
2	Argentina	M. Marquez	1	1
3	USA	M. Marquez	1	DNF
4	Qatar	M. Marquez	1	1
5	Spain	F. Quartararo	DNF	2
6	France	F. Quartararo	4	DNF
7	Great Britain	F. Quartararo	7	DNF
8	Aragon	M. Marquez	1	1
9	Italy	M. Marquez	1	1
10	Netherlands	F. Quartararo	DNF	10
11	Germany	M. Marquez	1	1
12	Czech Republic	P. Bagnaia	7	4

In the first 11 rounds of the season, two riders shared all of the poles available : Marc Marquez with the factory Ducati (7 poles) and Fabio Quartararo with the factory Yamaha (4 poles). With Pecco Bagnaia getting the pole in round 12, we can say that no rider got their first MotoGP pole in 2025 and no satellite rider has gotten a pole yet in 2025.

Finally, we had the only poleman who achieved his pole after going through Q1 : Pecco Bagnaia in Brno. Pecco was then unable to convert his pole in a podium in either the sprint or the race (but at least he crossed the finish line both times).

sprints

results

Sprints results

Round	Circuit	Winner Starting Position	1st	2nd	3rd
1	Thailand	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
2	Argentina	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
3	USA	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
4	Qatar	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	F. Morbidelli
5	Spain	2	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
6	France	2	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	F. Aldeguer
7	Great Britain	2	A. Marquez	M. Marquez	F. Di Giannantonio
8	Aragon	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	F. Aldeguer
9	Italy	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
10	Netherlands	4	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	M. Bezzecchi
11	Germany	1	M. Marquez	M. Bezzecchi	F. Quartararo
12	Czech Republic	1	M. Marquez	P. Acosta	E. Bastianini

wins & podiums

And who was here to complete the podium with them? Well, every single Ducati rider, at least once. Pecco Bagnaia had the most (5 sprint podiums in total) while Fermin Aldeguer had 2 (Le Mans and Aragon) and both VR46 riders had one each (a P3 in Losail for Franco Morbidelli and a P3 in Silverstone for Fabio Di Giannantonio).

Marco Bezzecchi was the only Aprilia rider to get a sprint podium (even two with the P3 in Assen and the P2 in Sachsenring) while Fabio Quartararo was the only Yamaha representative with his P3 in Sachsenring.

KTM had to wait until the 12th round in Brno to get on the podium of the sprint with both Pedro Acosta (P2) and Enea Bastianini (P3) joining Marc Marquez for the Saturday ceremony. Honda is the only factory not represented yet.

The first 9 rounds of the season only had Ducatis on the sprint podium. In the last 3 rounds, 5 of the 9 available spots were taken by riders from another factory. Is this a trend that might be able to continue after the break? We shall see.

One sprint had 3 different factories represented on the podium (Sachsenring) while 4 others had 3 different teams present (on 3 occasions it was 3 different Ducati teams but in Brno we had the two KTM teams).

average finishing position

Average sprints finishing position for each rider

If we look at the average finishing position (AFP) in sprints, Marc Marquez is a mile ahead of everyone with a 1.1 average that’s a result from all his wins and his single second place.

Alex Marquez now sits with a 3.7 AFP but it’s worth noting that his score was at a 1.9 up until Assen (included), his more complicated results in Sachsenring (P8) and Brno (P17) significantly lowering his average.

In third place, we find a rider who despite only two podiums (P3 both times), has always consistently finished in the top 7 of sprints (top 6 even, if we put aside his P7 in Le Mans). That’s Fabio Di Giannantonio with a 5.0 AFP.

Pecco Bagnaia is next with a 5.9 AFP. Despite his 5 podiums, Pecco suffers from a couple of disappointing results like the P8 in Losail or the two P12 in Aragon and Sachsenring.

Franco Morbidelli closes off the top 5 full of Ducatis. The last bike affiliated to the Italian factory is Fermin Aldeguer in P10 with a 9.3 AFP. Similarly to qualifying, all the factories are represented in the top 10 :

• Fabio Quartararo is the best Yamaha in P6 (6.8 AFP),
• Marco Bezzecchi is the best Aprilia in P7 (7.4 AFP),
• Pedro Acosta is the best KTM in P8 (8.6 AFP),
• Johann Zarco is the best Honda in P9 (9.2 AFP).

improvement from qualifying

3 riders have managed to gain, on average, at least 4 positions from their spot on the grid on Saturday afternoon. None of the names are surprising riders as they’re all riders who are usually starting from the 5th or 6th row of the grid :

• Enea Bastianini : average gain of 4.4 positions with an AQP of 17.5,
• Brad Binder : average gain of 4.2 positions with an AQP of 14.2,
• Ai Ogura : average gain of 4.0 positions with an AQP of 16.3.

On the other end of the spectrum, we don’t find a lot of riders who are more often losing than gaining positions in sprints and if they do so, it’s less than a position and they’re already qualifying well to begin with (ex: Alex Marquez, Franco Morbidelli and Pecco Bagnaia).

Finally, Fabio Quartararo, who has been qualifying extremely well so far in 2025 with a 4.8 AQP, has been struggling to stay up front during sprints. Of the 10 sprints he finished, Fabio only gained positions in two of them (+5 in COTA and +4 in Sachsenring) for an average of 2 positions lost per sprint completed.

extra

5 riders have been in the points at least 75% of the time : Marc Marquez (12 sprints), Alex Marquez (11), Fabio Di Giannantonio (10), Pecco Bagnaia and Marco Bezzecchi (9).

3 riders from the full time grid have failed to score a single sprint point so far : Somkiat Chantra (P17 as a best result in 9 sprints), Miguel Oliveira (P11 as a best result in 9 sprints) and Jorge Martin (P16 in Losail and P11 in Brno).

The rider with the most amount of sprint DNFs is Brad Binder (4) followed by Joan Mir and Johann Zarco (3). Only one team had a double DNFs in a sprint : KTM in Mugello.

Each sprint had between 1 and 3 DNFs, for an average of 2.2 overall (full details given later on).

All sprints have been won from either P1 or P2, except in Assen where Marc Marquez won from P4 on the grid.

races

Races results

Round	Circuit	Winner Starting Position	1st	2nd	3rd
1	Thailand	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
2	Argentina	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	F. Morbidelli
3	USA	6	P. Bagnaia	A. Marquez	F. Di Giannantonio
4	Qatar	1	M. Marquez	P. Bagnaia	F. Morbidelli
5	Spain	4	A. Marquez	F. Quartararo	P. Bagnaia
6	France	11	J. Zarco	M. Marquez	F. Aldeguer
7	Great Britain	10	M. Bezzecchi	J. Zarco	M. Marquez
8	Aragon	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
9	Italy	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	F. Di Giannantonio
10	Netherlands	4	M. Marquez	M. Bezzecchi	P. Bagnaia
11	Germany	1	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Bagnaia
12	Czech Republic	1	M. Marquez	M. Bezzecchi	P. Acosta

wins & podiums

The season so far can be divided in two parts, the first 7 rounds and the last 5. If Marc Marquez started the season dominating in every field (up until the Sunday morning in COTA, he had the 3 poles available, 3 sprint wins available and 2 races win available), we ended up with 5 different winners from 3 different factories in the following 5 races.

Two weeks later, in Silverstone (a circuit that has been good to Aprilias in recent years), Marco Bezzecchi achieved his first win since Buddh 2023, his first win as a factory rider for Aprilia.

Then, from round 8 in Aragon to round 12 in Brno, Marc Marquez didn’t leave a crumb of hope to anyone, winning 5 Sundays in a row for the first time since 2019 and his Misano → Philip Island run back then.

Podiums wise, just like on Saturdays with sprints, every Ducati rider got on the box at least once :

• Marc Marquez : 10 (only missing on the podium when he crashed + DNFed in COTA and when he finished P12 in Jerez),
• Alex Marquez : 8 (6 of them being P2s behind Marc, a P2 behind Pecco Bagnaia in COTA and his win in Jerez),
• Pecco Bagnaia : 7 (including 5 P3s —3 of them behind the Marquez brothers—, a P2 behind Marc Marquez in Losail and his win in COTA),
• Franco Morbidelli : 2 (P3 in both Termas and Losail, that second one obtained after Maverick Viñales’ tyre pressure penalty),
• Fabio Di Giannantonio : 2 (P3 in COTA and Mugello),
• Fermin Aldeguer : 1 (P3 in Le Mans for his first MotoGP podium).

Finally, Johann Zarco brought Honda a second podium by following his win in Le Mans with a P2 in Silverstone. Yamaha and KTM both have one lonely podium for now : respectively, Fabio Quartararo’s P2 in Jerez and Pedro Acosta’s P3 in Brno.

average finishing position

Average races finishing position for each rider

The order of the rankings for Sundays’ AFP is not widely different from the one of Saturdays —which, after all, riders don’t fully change over night doubling the distance to ride— but there are still a couple of things to note.

Fabio Di Giannantonio and Fabio Quartararo are the two riders mainly doing worse during races and having an impact on everybody else’s ranking (Di Giannantonio goes from P3 in the Sprints AFP rankings to P9 in the Races AFP rankings and Quartararo goes from a P6 to a P11). I discuss their cases a little further down this article.

Also, Jorge Martin has only crossed the finish line once on a Sunday so far this season (in Brno) and he did so in 7th position. This inherently gives him a 7.0 AFP and theoretically puts him in P6 of the rankings we’re currently discussing. Is his one P7 finish worth the same as Marco Bezzecchi’s 6.7 average and Pedro Acosta’s 7.1 average after 12 races? Not exactly.

Our top 2 stays unchanged but there, the Marquez brothers are much closer with only 0.4 pt separating Alex’s 2.7 AFP of Marc’s 2.4.

This time, Pecco Bagnaia gets to close off the top 3 with his 4.2 AFP. Pecco suffers greatly from his P16 in Le Mans, having always finished at least P4 in all the other races he finished (including 7 times on the podium). If we remove his Le Mans result, Pecco’s AFP jumps to a 3.0, only three tenths behind Alex Marquez.

Franco Morbidelli is next, two podiums and results always in the top 7 except for his P15 in Le Mans making for an overall 5.7 AFP.

(Do we see a common theme of Le Mans being a trap to riders that have otherwise done well at other circuits? Maybe so.)

Regarding the other factories, the best scorers have been the same than in the sprints :

• Pedro Acosta in the best KTM in P7 (7.1 AFP),
• Johann Zarco is the best Honda in P8 (8.1 AFP),
• Fabio Quartararo is the best Yamaha in P11 (9.1 AFP).

If you want to ignore Jorge Martin’s one finish in Brno, you can bump those three riders up a spot in the rankings.

improvement from qualifying

Average positions gained / lost by each rider between qualifying and races

Ignoring Jorge Martin and his one Sunday finish, we find the same top 3 as earlier with the sprints, in a different order but with numbers close to each other :

• Ai Ogura : average gain of 6.2 positions with an AQP of 16.3,
• Enea Bastianini : average gain of 5.9 positions with a 17.5 AQP,
• Brad Binder : average gain of 4.9 positions with a 14.2 AQP.

We can note that those gains are higher than in the sprints with riders starting from behind on the grid having more laps to ride on Sunday and more time to make up those positions (while other riders also have more time to make mistakes).

Behind this trio, we find another one with an average gain between 3.3 and 4.0, and it’s a trio made of the 3 Hondas of Somkiat Chantra (21.2 AQP), Luca Marini (13.9 AQP) and Joan Mir (12.6 AQP).

Then, in a similar fashion to Fabio Di Giannantonio with the sprints, we have a rider who has been qualifying well with a 9.6 AQP and still gaining nearly 3 positions on average on Sunday : Marco Bezzecchi. Of the 10 races he finished, there are only 2 occurrences of Marco losing positions compared to his grid spot (-3 in Jerez and -7 in Le Mans). His best comebacks include a +12 in Aragon (P20 to P8) and his win in Silverstone (P11 to P1).

On the other end of the rankings, once again we have a lot of riders barely moving from their grid spot after a good qualifying to begin with (essentially, all of the Ducati riders).

On the other hand, contrary to his sprints habits, Jack Miller has been quite steady with his races results (although more often than not gaining places in the first half and then losing them all in the second half). Of the 8 races that Jack completed, 6 of them ended with either one position lost / same finish as his grid spot / one position gained. His other results are a -7 in Buriram (P4 to P11) and a +4 in COTA (P9 to P5).

Finally, we unfortunately find the same rider at the end of this chart, with an even worse average of positions lost (4.3 to be exact) : Fabio Quartararo. He’s the only rider to have a significantly negative difference between his Races AFP and his AQP. Despite really good positions at the starts, Fabio has been struggling to stay ahead of the rest of the grid and the longer the races, the harder it has been to keep up and not be overtaken by the riders behind him.

extra

Two riders only missed on the points once : Marc Marquez with his DNF in COTA and Alex Rins with his P17 in Buriram. Then, we have three riders who missed on the points twice : Marco Bezzecchi (DNF in Termas and Sachsenring), Pecco Bagnaia (P16 in Le Mans and DNF in Silverstone) and Raul Fernandez (DNF in Buriram and P17 in Losail).

58% of races (7 out of 12) have been won from pole. Of the remaining 5, 3 were won from the second row (Alex Marquez P4 in Jerez, Marc Marquez P4 in Assen, Pecco Bagnaia P6 in COTA) and 2 from the fourth (Marco Bezzecchi P10 in Silverstone, Johann Zarco P11 in Le Mans).

Only two riders completed all the races they started : Alex Rins (not missing a single round so far this sound) and Luca Marini (not racing in Aragon, Mugello and Assen).

Each race had between 2 and 8 DNFs, for an average of 4.3 overall. The season started quietly with only 2 DNFs in both Buriram and Termas but things got heated in Sachsenring where that 8 DNFs maximum was reached in a race that saw the lowest amount of finishers (10) since Phillip Island in 2011.

On average, with his 8 DNFs, Joan Mir only crossed the finish line one time every 3 races. It’s twice more DNFs than the next rider on the list : Jack Miller with 4. Then we have 7 riders all with 3 DNFs, 5 of which have started all 12 rounds available.

sprints vs races

Rider	Sprints AFP	Races AFP	Difference
Ai Ogura	12.3	10.1	-2.2
Álex Marquez	3.7	2.7	-1.0
Álex Rins	14.9	12.8	-2.2
Brad Binder	10.0	9.2	-0.8
Enea Bastianini	13.1	11.6	-1.5
Fabio Di Giannantonio	5.0	8.2	3.2
Fabio Quartararo	6.8	9.1	2.3
Fermin Aldeguer	9.3	8.8	-0.6
Franco Morbidelli	6.3	5.7	-0.6
Jack Miller	12.4	10.3	-2.2
Joan Mir	11.8	9.3	-2.5
Johann Zarco	9.2	8.1	-1.1
Jorge Martin	13.5	7.0	-6.5
Luca Marini	13.0	10.4	-2.6
Marc Marquez	1.1	2.3	1.2
Marco Bezzecchi	7.4	6.7	-0.7
Maverick Viñales	9.3	11.0	1.7
Miguel Oliveira	14.5	15.0	0.5
Pecco Bagnaia	5.9	4.2	-1.7
Pedro Acosta	8.6	7.1	-1.5
Raúl Fernández	13.0	10.6	-2.4
Somkiat Chantra	19.2	17.3	-2.0

Once again ignoring Jorge Martin (sorry, it’s starting to feel personal but I promise it’s not), the results aren’t very surprising except for two riders in particular :

• Fabio Di Giannantonio : a 5.0 AFP in sprints but a 8.2 in races, one of the only riders doing better on Saturdays. He was in the points 10 times on Saturday (never outside of the top 7 except for his 2 DNFs) but he had two P16 on Sunday in Losail and Brno along with a couple of P9 and P10 as well.
• Fabio Quartararo : a 6.8 AFP in sprints but a 9.1 in races, a smaller difference but the same fact than Fabio Di Giannantonio. The Yamaha rider never finished a sprint below P11 meanwhile he had two P14 and a P15 on Sundays.

Seeing 16 out of 21 riders (76% of the grid, still ignoring Jorge Martin) having a better AFP on Sunday is actually to be expected considering the fact that on average, less riders finish the race on Sunday (17.2) compared to the sprint on Saturday (19.5).

In other words, if you do cross the finish line —the only results that the AFP consider—, you have a high chance to have a better position on Sunday rather than on Saturday (this is even truer for riders fighting for points / the bottom of the rankings).

Circuit	Sprint Starters	Sprint DNFs	Sprint Finishers	Race Starters	Race DNFs	Race Finishers
Thailand	22	2	20	22	2	20
Argentina	22	3	19	20	1	18*
USA	22	2	20	22	5	17
Qatar	21	1	20	22	4	18
Spain	23	3	20	23	5	18
France	22	2	20	22	6	16
United Kingdom	22	1	21	22	3	19
Aragon	21	2	19	21	3	18
Italy	22	3	19	22	4	18
Netherlands	22	3	19	22	6	16
Germany	19	1	18	18	8	10
Czech Republic	22	3	19	21	3	18
Averages	21.7	2.2	19.5	21.4	4.2	17.2

*Officially 19 riders crossed the finish line but Ai Ogura was disqualified after the race.

We had three Sundays with less participants than Saturdays due to riders injuring themselves in the sprint :

• Miguel Oliveira and Lorenzo Savadori in Termas,
• Franco Morbidelli in Sachsenring,
• Takaaki Nakagami in Brno.

On the other hand, Joan Mir missed the sprint in Losail due to illness but raced on Sunday. Overall, this doesn’t make a big difference in the averages (21.7 starters in sprints, 21.4 starters in races).

The DNFs made the difference with 2.2 riders not crossing the finish line on Saturdays on average against 4.2 on Sundays.

Season	Average number of Sprint DNFs	Average number of Race DNFs
2023	2.2	4.6
2024	3.45	4.05
First 12 rounds of 2025	2.2	4.2

global analysis by factory

AQP, Sprints AFP and Races AFP for all teams and factories (ranked by best races AFP)

In the table above I’ve concatenated everyone’s AQP/AFPs and included the averages per team and per factory. Here are a couple of things we can observe.

Then, we have rankings which follow the current order of the Constructor Championship, with Aprilia and KTM close together and then Honda and Yamaha also close but a little behind.

If Marco Bezzecchi has been impressive in the second half of the season so far (currently sitting P4 in the Championship standings) and has gathered good AQP/AFPs, his contribution to Aprilia’s numbers gets dimmed by the results of Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez.

Likewise, 3 other riders have been doing much better than their factory « teammates » : Pedro Acosta for KTM, Johann Zarco for Honda and Fabio Quartararo for Yamaha.

Note : the average AQP of the whole grid is a 10.7 while the average Races AFP is a 9.7 and the average Races AFP is a 8.8, meaning that riders usually gain one position between Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon and then one more between Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

Starting from better positions, Ducati riders are logically gaining less places but we still see an upward tendency between the average qualifying position and the sprints / races results. On the other hand, with Yamaha we observe a light decrease between the AQP and the Sprints AFP while the average race result is exactly on par with the qualifying result.

evolution between 2024 and 2025

introduction

Evolution of the AQP, Sprints AFP and Races AFP between 2024 and the first half of 2025

Of the 19 2024 MotoGP riders that stayed on the grid in 2025 : 11 riders stayed with the same team, 2 riders stayed with the same factory but got an upgrade to the factory team (Marc Marquez from Gresini to Ducati, Pedro Acosta from Tech3 to KTM) and 6 riders changed factory.

Between last season and now, teams had time to develop their bikes and riders had time to grow on their own as well. How did that translate in terms of results after 12 rounds so far? Let’s see.

qualifying

Evolution of the AQP between 2024 and the first half of 2025

6 riders detach themselves from the rest in terms of improvement in qualifying, Fabio Quartararo with a gap of his own at the very top.

2025 couldn’t have been more different with his 100% Q2 appearance rate (twice from Q1, 10 times from PR), his 4 poles and 6 front rows that lead him to his current 4.8 AQP.

Then, we have 4 riders who stayed with their respective team, including the 3 Hondas of Joan Mir (+ 6.2 positions gained), Luca Marini (+ 5.7) and Johann Zarco (+ 5.4). It’s particularly impressive when we note that neither of the official Honda had made it to Q2 in 2024 (both had a P13 has their best qualifying result) and Joan Mir has done it 6 times so far and Luca Marini twice.

Johann Zarco already had it better to the other two in 2024 (5 Q2 appearances, 25% rate) but 2025 has seen him in Q2 more often (8 times, 67% appearance rate) and getting on the front row twice when his 2024 best qualifying position was a P7 in Mandalika.

Finally, respectfully P3 and P6 of the rankings, Alex Marquez (+ 6.2 positions gained) and Marc Marquez (+ 4.9 positions gained). Marc had less of a margin to improve considering his 6.6 2024 AQP and Alex’s 9.5 but they’ve both been making the most of their bikes on Saturday mornings.

3 riders have lost between 3 and 4 positions between 2024 and 2025 :

• Brad Binder : -3.9 positions while staying on the same bike, a 25% Q2 appearance rate (3 so far) against 70% in 2024, his AQP in 2024 was a 10.3 but he’s only qualified above P10 once this season (a P6 in Aragon),
• Miguel Oliveira : – 3.8 positions going from an Aprilia to a Yamaha, his AQP in 2024 was a 12.9 but P13 is the best qualifying position he’s achieved so far in 2025,
• Maverick Viñales : -3.6 positions, coming from an Aprilia where he qualified really well in 2024 (never visited Q1 during the season for a 7.1 AQP) makes Maverick suffer in the comparison but his qualifying numbers haven’t been that poor for a rider on a KTM (not to Pedro Acosta’s level but well above Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini) with 8 Q2 in 11 rounds (injured in Brno) and a 10.7 AQP.

Pecco Bagnaia has lost 2 positions compared to 2024. Coming from a season where he won the BMW M Award for best qualifier with his 6 poles and 13 front rows (65% of rounds), Pecco has had more struggles in 2025 with the Saturday morning fast lap exercise with 50% of front rows and only one pole in Brno.

sprints

The evolution for the Sprints AFP and the Races AFP is fairly similar for most riders so for now, I will only focus on the positions gained in the races department.

The two riders who have a big difference in evolution are Jack Miller (2.3 positions lost in sprints, 2.0 positions gained in races) and Fabio Di Giannantonio (4.4 positions gained in sprints, 1.3 positions lost in races) but this align with facts I’ve already discussed earlier.

races

Evolution of the Races AFP between 2024 and the first half of 2025

If he was on top of the chart before, Fabio Quartararo is the one rider —from the top— who doesn’t have his Sunday racing improvement aligned with his qualifying improvement. As stated earlier, Fabio has been struggling to convert his poles and other good grid spots into higher results. He’s still doing better overall (2 positions gained on average, always in the points, a podium for the first time since 2023) but there is room for more.

Fabio put aside, though, we find the same 4 riders that completed the top 5 of improved qualifying in the improved races finishes : our 3 Hondas and Alex Marquez.

Johann Zarco has also been improving immensely. If his best 2024 result was a P8, he has finished above that position on 5 occasions already this year (going as high as winning in Le Mans). He had a Races AFP of 13.6 last year but he’s only had one result worse than a P13 so far, his P17 in COTA.

Joan Mir’s pool of data is a little smaller than the rest of the grid as he only crossed the finish line on 4 Sundays so far this season but his associated results have all been between a P7 and a P11 while P11 was his best result of 2024.

Similarly to the top, our bottom 5 riders (in a different order) are the exact same as the qualifying chart, with Enea Bastianini largely at the bottom (- 6.8 positions), outside of the points on 4 occasions. His best result so far has been a P7 and then a P9 (achieved 3 times). He came close to doing better in Brno but eventually crashed out of the race while he was running in P4.

Finally, Pecco Bagnaia was logically due to get a lower Races AFP in 2025, going from winning 55% of races last season (11 in 20) to only 8% so far (1 in 12). His podiums % has also gone down from a 80% in 2024 (16 in 20) to 58% in 2025 (7 in 12). The only time Pecco crossed the finish line outside of the podium in 2024 was his P5 in COTA. In 2025, this happened 4 times already.

I will stop here because the season is literally about to start again in less than 24 hours but I’ll hopefully see y’all in 3 months to see how things have evolved with the remaining 10 rounds.