virage du raccordement

In the collective mind, 2025 has to be the year of the comeback of Marc Marquez to the top. The year of the 9th. The year with the 3 first time winners. The year with the beginning of an Aprilia comeback. It was also much more than that and we’ll delve into all of it here.

If you read my mid-season review, this article will follow the same structure with a couple of additions, obviously also including the results of the second half of 2025.

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).

considerations of wildcards and replacements riders

The only place where I’ve considered the data of wildcards and replacements riders is when talking about the number of starters & finishers (and consequently the number of DNFs).

Besides the fact that most of wildcards and replacements riders usually have few points of data to use considering they don’t race that often (save for Lorenzo Savadori in 2025, a special case), I didn’t think that it was fair to consider their qualifying and race results for the sole fact that they don’t have the same status as riders from the main grid. Their training and their goals for the season are different so I don’t think it’s fair to compare their results all together.

qualifying

introduction

on Q1 & Q2

Q1/Q2 results

When the summer break came, 20 riders (from the main grid, not accounting for wildcards or replacements riders) had already reached Q2 at least once. Since then, Miguel Oliveira had his first and only Q2 appearance of the season when he finished P9 in Practice in Mandalika. Somkiat Chantra is the only rider who always remained in Q1 with P19 as his best qualifying position.

4 riders only reached Q2 through the top 10 in Practice and never from being in the top 2 of Q1 :

• Brad Binder (17 times in Q1),
• Jorge Martin (6 times in Q1),
• Miguel Oliveira (18 times in Q1),
• Pedro Acosta (1 time in Q1).

Every single rider on the grid had to go to Q1 at least once, Alex Marquez breaking his direct Q2 streak in Motegi and his brother Marc doing so the following weekend in Mandalika.

On the contrary, in the first half of the season, Luca Marini had only reached Q2 via a top 2 in Q1 but in the 10 rounds post break, Luca placed himself in the top 10 of Practice on 6 occasions.

Three riders survived Q1 on 5 occasions : Fabio Quartararo, Fermin Aldeguer and Raul Fernandez.

On 13 occasions (59% of the time), the rider P1 in Q1 out-qualified the rider P2 in Q2. On 6 occasions, the two riders finished right next to each other on the grid. On average, they were separated by 3.5 positions.

From the chart above, you can also see that riders coming from Q1 were qualifying better in the second half of the season compared to the first. Their average qualifying position in the first half was a 8.4 against a 5.4 in the second half.

on qualifying positions

Qualifying position results

average qualifying position

Average qualifying position for each rider

Just like in the final standings of the championship, his brother Alex follows him here with a very respectable 3.9 AQP. Despite only scoring one pole, Alex Marquez has been very consistent in the qualifying exercise (as mentioned above: 100% Q2 appearances) and he was on the front row 14 times, more than any other riders.

Behind them, a rider that has been been able to exploit the best of his Yamaha on fast laps : Fabio Quartararo and his 5.1 AQP. Fabio managed to stay on of the first two rows in 15 out of 22 rounds (68% of the season). 4 more positions were at least on the third row. His worst qualifying results were a P16 (Spielberg), P11 (COTA) and a P10 (Buriram).

Then, the rider that was number 1 AQP in 2024 (and also won the BMW M Award that season) but who struggled to put it all together with this year’s bike: Pecco Bagnaia and his 6.9 AQP.

To close the top 5, a third factory comes in with Pedro Acosta and his 7.0 AQP. After his one mishap in Silverstone (staying in Q1 with a P14), Pedro never qualified outside of the first 3 rows, always qualifying P7 or above except in Misano (P9). During the overseas rounds and back to Europe (Motegi to Valencia, 6 last rounds), Pedro even always qualified within the top 5.

All that being said, two other riders are very close to Pecco Bagnaia and Pedro Acosta: Franco Morbidelli (7.1 AQP) and Marco Bezzecchi (7.2 AQP). The two Italians had very different trajectories in 2025, Franco with 3 Q1 stays in the last 5 rounds while Marco had 3 poles in the same time period (scored all 5 of his poles after the break).

Still considering the AQP rankings :

• All 6 Ducatis are in the top 10,
• Johann Zarco is the best Honda in P10 (11.0 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 : Jorge Martin (15.0), Alex Rins (15.2), Ai Ogura (16.3), Enea Bastianini (16.3), Miguel Oliveira (16.4) and Somkiat Chantra (21.5).

front rows

Number of front rows per rider (before and after the break)

Keeping in my mind that the first part of the season had 2 more rounds than the second part and in consequence 6 more spots on the front row available, we can still take a few things from the chart above :

• The second part of the season was more diverse in terms of riders on the front row (12 different riders against 8 in the first part),
• 5 riders only had one front row (which always occured in the second part of the season),
• Marco Bezzecchi had a massive jump in front row appearances in the second half, only missing it on 3 occasions (P12 in Barcelona, P9 in Motegi, P14 in Sepang),
• Marc Marquez was extremely dominant in the first half of the season, only missing the front row on 2 occasions and both time for a P4 qualifying result (Silverstone and Assen).

Ducati dominated the front rows with 42 of them between all 6 of their riders (64% of all front rows available). That being said, we only had a Ducati front row lockout on 5 occasions : Buriram, COTA, Aragon, Mugello and Sepang.

Yamaha (11) and Aprilia (9) follow mostly thanks to Fabio Quartararo (10) and Marco Bezzecchi’s (7) efforts. Honda had 3 fronts (2 from Johann Zarco and one from Joan Mir) while Pedro Acosta scored the only KTM front row in the penultimate round in Portimao.

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
13	Austria	M. Bezzecchi	4	3
14	Hungary	M. Marquez	1	1
15	Catalonia	A. Marquez	DNF	1
16	San Marino	M. Bezzecchi	1	2
17	Japan	P. Bagnaia	1	1
18	Indonesia	M. Bezzecchi	1	DNF
19	Australia	F. Quartararo	7	11
20	Malaysia	P. Bagnaia	1	DNF
21	Portugal	M. Bezzecchi	3	1
22	Valencia	M. Bezzecchi	5	1

If Marc Marquez and Fabio Quartararo absolutely dominated the fast lap exercise in the first half of the season (sharing all the poles of the first 11 rounds and leaving one out to Pecco Bagnaia in Brno right before the break), the second half went in a different direction.

Obviously, Marc missed the last 4 rounds after his Mandalika crash but from Spielberg to Mandalika, he only scored the pole once (in 6 rounds). That’s 16% of poles against his 58% rate before the break. Likewise, with the difference that he participated in all the rounds, Fabio went from getting 4 poles in 12 rounds (33%) to just one in the last 10 (10%).

On 3 occasions did a rider have to go through Q1 before getting their pole: Pecco Bagnaia in Brno and Sepang and Marco Bezzecchi in Spielberg.

In terms of successes, Marc Marquez converted his 8 poles into 8 sprint wins and 7 race wins (his only miss being the DNF in COTA). Fabio Quartararo is on the other end of the spectrum, only converting his 5 poles into one podium (the P2 in Jerez) and even DNFing on 4 occasions (40% of his pole starts).

Pecco Bagnaia is right in the middle considering he converted his poles into 3 wins, a DNF and two out of the podium positions. Just like Alex Marquez who turned his Barcelona pole into a sprint DNF and a race win.

Finally, Marco Bezzecchi went closer to the Marc Marquez way, converting his 5 poles into 5 wins, 3 additional podiums, a P4 and a P5.

sprints

results

Note : the worst result is obviously the worst result when crossing the finish line, DNFs not considered.

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
13	Austria	4	M. Marquez	A. Marquez	P. Acosta
14	Hungary	1	M. Marquez	F. Di Giannantonio	F. Morbidelli
15	Catalonia	3	M. Marquez	F. Quartararo	F. Di Giannantonio
16	San Marino	1	M. Bezzecchi	A. Marquez	F. Di Giannantonio
17	Japan	1	P. Bagnaia	M. Marquez	P. Acosta
18	Indonesia	1	M. Bezzecchi	F. Aldeguer	R. Fernandez
19	Australia	2	M. Bezzecchi	R. Fernandez	P. Acosta
20	Malaysia	1	P. Bagnaia	A. Marquez	P. Acosta
21	Portugal	5	A. Marquez	P. Acosta	M. Bezzecchi
22	Valencia	2	A. Marquez	P. Acosta	F. Di Giannantonio

wins & podiums

The sprint was the Marquez brothers’ territory for the first part of the season, scoring the 1-2 in the first 10 rounds and then again in Spielberg. Marc won 14 of the first 15 rounds of the season, achieving one last podium in Japan two rounds later.

Number of sprint podiums per rider (before and after the break)

In terms of podiums, Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez were on a tier of their own, respectively with 16 podiums (out of 18 starts) and 15 podiums (out of 22 starts).

Just like with front rows, Ducati acquired most of the sprint podiums (44 in total, 73% of the podiums available), all 6 of their riders getting at least one podium. Then, KTM (with Pedro Acosta’s 7 and Enea Bastianini’s 1) and Aprilia (with Marco Bezzecchi’s 6 and Raul Fernandez’ 2) both had 8 podiums (12% of the podiums available). Fabio Quartararo is the only rider who put Yamaha on the podium (twice).

Honda never made it to a sprint podium but 3 of their riders (Luca Marini, Joan Mir and Johann Zarco) came close with one P4 each.

The first 9 sprints of the season were locked up by Ducati, something that happened one more time in Balaton Park. KTM placed two riders on the podium once with Pedro Acosta and Enea Bastianini (Brno), something Aprilia did twice with Marco Bezzecchi and Raul Fernandez (Mandalika and Phillip Island).

We had 3 different factories on the podium on 2 different occasions : Sachsenring and Portimao.

average finishing position

Average position (sprints finished) for each rider

Fun fact : the top 6 is made of riders from 6 different teams and 4 different factories. That being said, Ducati still make up all of the podium positions of these rankings, starting with Marc Marquez and his 1.5 sprints AFP. The 3 times he didn’t finish on the podium, Marc ended up with a P2 (Silverstone), a DNF not counting towards his sprints AFP and a P7 in Mandalika (remove the Mandalika result and he has an absolutely ridiculous 1.1 sprints AFP).

After that, his results were a little more complicated with only two podiums from Brno (round 11) to Phillip Island (round 19). Alex finished the year on a high note, though, with the P2 in Sepang followed by two wins in Portimao and Valencia.

He may have less sprints podiums than some other riders on the grid (5 in total) but one thing Fabio Di Giannantonio showed on Saturday afternoons was consistency to obtain his 5.5 sprints AFP. Of the 20 sprints he completed through to the finish line, 15 of them have been with a P6 or better. His other results are not that far from that with one P7, two P8, a P10 and a P13.

After him, Marco Bezzecchi might have scored more podiums (6) and most importantly sprints wins (3 of them) but he achieved worst results than the VR46 rider when he was still getting a handle of his Aprilia in the first half of the season, justifying his 5.9 sprints AFP. From Buriram (round 1) to Mugello (round 9), the Italian has 6 results P8 or below. From Assen (round 10) until Valencia (round 22), he never finished lower than P7.

Fabio Quartararo closes off the top 5 with a 6.5 sprints AFP. With only 2 podiums, Fabio still sits higher than two riders with 7 podiums: Pedro Acosta in 6th and Pecco Bagnaia in 8th. Besides his two P10 and two P11 results, the Yamaha rider always finished in the top 7 on Saturdays.

Just like with qualifying, all Ducatis are in the top 10 and Johann Zarco is the best Honda (9.1 sprints AFP).

improvement from qualifying

notes

In the article regarding the first half of the season, I simply compared the AQP to the sprints AFP. Now, I’ve realized that technically, since I only consider the non-DNFs results in the AFP, I should also only consider the grid position of the sprints finished to discuss in this section. I’ll call it the altered (sprints) AGP.

(In 20 of the 22 rounds, the qualifying result = the grid position but in Losail and Misano, we have to account for the fact that Joan Mir had a qualifying result but did not participate in the sprint, moving some people up a spot).

To be fair, the difference with the regular AQP is quite minimal. Except for Johann Zarco (+ 0.8) and Maverick Viñales (+ 0.5), everyone else has a difference between -0.4 and + 0.4, for an absolute average of 0.2.

results

Overall, you could expect to find everyone with a positive amount of positions gained as in 2025, you always had less riders finishing a sprint than starting it and I put aside DNFs in this section. Nevertheless, this is not exactly what happened.

Comparison of the positions gained / lost during sprints with the altered AQP

3 riders have managed to gain at least 3 positions from their position on the grid on Saturday afternoons (when finishing the sprints) :

• Enea Bastianini (4.9 positions gained),
• Brad Binder (3.9 positions gained),
• Ai Ogura (3.4 positions gained).

As you can note in the chart above, these 3 riders have one thing in common: they all have an altered AGP of over 14.2. If we keep going down the list we can even find the worst qualified of 2025, Somkiat Chantra, in 4th.

If we look into the details, the VR46 rider finished higher than he started on 15 occasions (gains ranging from one to 10 positions). One time he finished where he started and on 4 occasions he lost positions (one position x2, two positions x2).

On the other end of the scale, Fabio Quartararo has been struggling to convert his good qualifying results into good sprints results, losing on average one position per sprint finished. Fabio is also the rider who has finished below his grid position the most in sprints finished (12 times, see chart below).

Pecco Bagnaia has a very similar result to Fabio with 0.9 position lost on average on Saturdays, his worst results being losing 8 positions in Aragon (P4 -> P12) and Phillip Island (P11 -> P19).

For a different visualisation of the sprints results’ improvement from qualifying, I’ve included the chart below which compares the final position of riders with their position on the grid.

Sprints finished higher / equal / lower to grid position for each rider

To balance the « qualifying high means it’s harder to gain places / easier to lose places and the opposite is also true for qualifying low on the grid » thing and in order to take that initial qualifying spot into consideration, I looked into the ratio that represented the positions gained / lost over the initial altered AGP.

Note: Marc Marquez’ ratio is a 39%.

Comparison of the positions gained / lost during sprints with the ratio positions gain or loss / altered AQP

Despite having the best (altered) AGP, Marc Marquez still manages to be first here as well. I’ve already mentioned that Marc converted all his poles into sprint wins but here are his results when he wasn’t on pole :

Race Weekend	Grid Position	Sprint Result
Jerez	P2	P1
Le Mans	P2	P1
Silverstone	P4	P2
Assen	P4	P1
Brno	P2	P1
Spielberg	P4	P1
Barcelona	P3	P1
Misano	P4	DNF
Motegi	P3	P2
Mandalika	P9	P7

Marc Marquez is the only rider, alongside Somkiat Chantra, to have never finished lower than where he started in a sprint.

Then, we find a rider that I mentioned previously: Fabio Di Giannantonio and his 2.6 positions gained while averaging a P8 start on the grid (sprints finished). He’s the second rider who most often finished higher than his grid positions in sprints (15 times).

His teammate Franco Morbidelli is on the other end of the scale, with a similar average P7 on the grid, the older Italian virtually didn’t move positions in the sprints he finished, ending up lower than he started on 7 occasions, the same twice and better 10 times.

Enea Bastianini, Brad Binder and Ai Ogura follow Di Giannantonio in the rankings but it’s interesting to note that we then have to move to the 10th name of that chart to find Somkiat Chantra.

Position	Number of sprints finished by Somkiat Chantra
Last	8
One position above last	4
Two positions above last	2
Three positions above last	1

The chart above, Somkiat’s average P22 spot on the grid and the DNFs happening in sprints (2.7 on average in 2025 for an average of 21.8 starters) only serve to show that Somkiat’s 2.7 positions gained in sprints were due to DNFs ahead more so than overtakes.

extra

The rider who has been in the points the most is Alex Marquez with 19 occurrences (he DNFed in Barcelona, finished P10 in Motegi and P17 in Brno). Fabio Di Giannantonio follows with 18 sprints in the points (2 DNFs, a P10 in Sepang and a P13 in Motegi). His one Misano DNF aside, Marc Marquez finished the other 17 sprints he started in the points. He’s the only rider who achieved that feat.

21 riders of the regular grid completed at least one sprint in the points. As a replacement rider, Pol Espargaro came close in Portimao, finishing P10 (after a P11 the previous race weekend in Sepang). 3 riders were in the points only once (Jorge Martin, Miguel Oliveira and Alex Rins) while Somkiat Chantra never managed to do so. His best result was a P17 (Termas, Motegi and Sepang).

Each sprint had between 1 and 5 DNFs, for an average of 2.8 DNF per sprint.

All sprints were won from the first two rows of the grid. The exact numbers are given in the table below.

Position of the winner on the grid	Number of sprints
P1	15
P2	4
P3	0
P4	1
P5	0
P6	2

races

results

Note : the worst result is obviously the worst result when crossing the finish line, DNFs not considered.

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
13	Austria	4	M. Marquez	F. Aldeguer	M. Bezzecchi
14	Hungary	1	M. Marquez	P. Acosta	M. Bezzecchi
15	Catalunya	1	A. Marquez	M. Marquez	E. Bastianini
16	San Marino	4	M. Marquez	M. Bezzecchi	A. Marquez
17	Japan	1	P. Bagnaia	M. Marquez	J. Mir
18	Indonesia	2	F. Aldeguer	P. Acosta	A. Marquez
19	Phillip Island	4	R. Fernandez	F. Di Giannantonio	M. Bezzecchi
20	Malaysia	2	A. Marquez	P. Acosta	J. Mir
21	Portugal	1	M. Bezzecchi	A. Marquez	P. Acosta
22	Valencia	1	M. Bezzecchi	R. Fernandez	F. Di Giannantonio

wins & podiums

Marc Marquez dominated on Sundays, taking the win on 11 occasions (out of the 18 races he took part in). He started with 3 wins in the first 4 rounds (could have been 4 out of 4 if not for that crash from the lead in COTA) and after a 3 weekends break (where he still achieved a P2 and a P3), Marc won 7 weekends in a row.

6 other riders shared the remaining 11 P1 available :

• Alex Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi (3),
• Pecco Bagnaia (2),
• Johann Zarco, Fermin Aldeguer and Raul Fernandez (1).

Out of all these riders, 3 of them were first time winners (Alex, Fermin and Raul) and two of those first wins occured when Marc Marquez either couldn’t finish the race (Fermin in Mandalika) or couldn’t race at all (Raul in Phillip Island).

Number of Sunday races podiums per rider (before and after the break)

Once again in a league of his own, Marc Marquez was on the podium in every race he started except on 3 occasions : the DNF in COTA, the P12 (due to a crash) in Jerez and the DNF in Mandalika. Then, Alex Marquez was a little more dominant in the first half with 7 podiums in 9 races finished (and 3 DNFs) before the break and 5 podiums in 10 races finished post break (no DNF).

Marco Bezzecchi had 3 podiums in the last 6 races of that first half of 2025 (Silverstone to Brno). After the break, he finished 8 out of 10 races and in those races he only missed the podium twice with a P4 in Motegi and a P11 in Sepang. On the other hand, Pecco Bagnaia went the opposite way results wise. He had 7 podiums and 3 P4s between Buriram (round 1) and Brno (round 12) but only a single podium after the summer break (his win in Motegi, round 17).

Riders who, like Marco Bezzecchi, did better after the break, include :

• Pedro Acosta (5 podiums with 3 of them in the last 5 rounds of the season),
• Fermin Aldeguer (3 podiums),
• Joan Mir (2 podiums, his firsts with Honda),
• Raul Fernandez (2 podiums in the last 3 rounds of 2025),
• Enea Bastianini (one podium when his best result of the first half was a P7).

Riders who, like Pecco Bagnaia, struggled more after the summer, include :

• Franco Morbidelli (2 podiums, P4 as a best result in the second half),
• Johann Zarco (2 podiums, P9 as a best result in the second half),
• Fabio Quartararo (one podium in Jerez, P5 as a best result in the second half).

And finally, Fabio Di Giannantonio is in the middle with podiums in COTA (round 3), Mugello (round 9), Phillip Island (round 19) and Valencia (round 22).

average finishing position

Average position (races finished) for each rider

From the chart, we can group the grid into different levels :

• Tier 1 [P2, one rider] : Marc Marquez, in a world of his own (would have a 1.3 races AFP if he hadn’t rejoined the race after his crash in Jerez),
• Tier 2 [P5–P6, 5 riders from 3 factories] : Alex Marquez, Pecco Bagnaia, Marco Bezzecchi, Pedro Acosta and Franco Morbidelli,
• Tier 3 [P8–P9, 8 riders from all 5 factories] : Fabio Di Giannantonio, Joan Mir, Fermin Aldeguer, Brad Binder, Jorge Martin, Fabio Quartararo, Luca Marini, Raul Fernandez,
• Tier 4 [P10–P11, 3 riders from 3 factories] : Johann Zarco, Ai Ogura, Enea Bastianini,
• Tier 5 [P12–P13, 4 riders including 3 from Yamaha] : Maverick Viñales, Jack Miller, Alex Rins, Miguel Oliveira,
• Tier 6 [P16, one rider] : Somkiat Chantra, a little apart from the rest of the grid.

A handful of additional notes :

• 4 factories are in the top 8 but we have to go to P12 to find the first Yamaha with Fabio Quartararo,
• Pecco Bagnaia went from P8 in the sprints rankings (8.1 sprints AFP) to a P3 here (4.2 races AFP), he stands out compared to the usual 2 or less positions gained (see the next chapter for more details).

I think that the comparison with the 2024 numbers is really interesting to see how MotoGP has gotten less Ducati-dominated and more even in 2025. I’ve talked about it on X, here.

improvement from qualifying

notes

Just like for the sprints, I only want to use the grid positions of the races that were finished by riders (altered AGP). This is for two reasons :

• To account for grid penalties that made some riders start lower (or higher thanks to other riders’ faults) than their qualifying position,
• To account for riders who qualified but did not participated in the Sunday race due to an injury in between.

3-places grid penalties that have been served in 2025 and taken into account here :

• Buriram : Franco Morbidelli and Somkiat Chantra,
• Silverstone : Franco Morbidelli,
• Assen : Enea Bastianini,
• Balaton Park : Jack Miller and Alex Marquez,
• Barcelona : Joan Mir,
• Phillip Island : Brad Binder and Pecco Bagnaia.

results

Comparison of the positions gained / lost during races with the altered AGP

To discuss the chart above, I will once again divide the grid into groups :

• Group 1 (riders qualifying between P15 and lower on the grid, earning 5 to 7 positions during races) : Enea Bastianini, Brad Binder, Jorge Martin, Ai Ogura, Somkiat Chantra

As expected, the biggest improvers had the time to gain more places on Sundays compared to during sprints. Those riders made the most of the time they had on the track to improve their low starting position.

The good student : Jorge Martin

Jorge Martin only started 7 Sunday races in 2025 and he finished 4 of them (DNF in Losail post crash, Spielberg post crash and Valencia to preserve his body). He struggled with qualifying but once he got going with an Aprilia that he barely got to test in the winter, things were pretty solid, even coming close to a podium in Hungary.

Weekend	Grid Position	Race Result	Positions Gained
Czech Republic	12	7	+5
Hungary	16	4	+12
Catalonia	17	10	+7
San Marino	11	13	-2

Special Mention : Somkiat Chantra

Somkiat Chantra’s sprints evolution was a little damning but I wanted to mention the fact that things were a little better on Sundays where he finished all the races he started except for one (Jerez) and won more positions compared to the last finishers.

Position	Number of races finished by Somkiat Chantra
Last	5
One position above last	7
Two positions above last	2
Three positions above last	1
Four positions above last	1

• Group 2 (riders qualifying between P11 and P14, earning 2 to 3 positions during races) : Joan Mir, Luca Marini, Raul Fernandez, Miguel Oliveira*, Maverick Viñales

In a similar way to the first group, those are riders who qualify a little better (more often in Q2) and still manage to earn a couple of positions over the length of a race.

Here, Miguel Oliveira appear as bit of an « anomaly » with his average P16 on the grid for only 2.5 positions gained on average. This a low gain compared to riders from the group 1 starting around the same position as the Portuguese rider.

• Group 3 (riders qualifying between P6 and P11, earning 1 or 2 positions during races) : Marco Bezzecchi, Pecco Bagnaia, Alex Rins*, Fermin Aldeguer, Johann Zarco, Pedro Acosta, Franco Morbidelli, Fabio Di Giannantonio

Then, we find the riders who often qualify in those 3rd and 4th row of the grid (sometimes even on the first two) and who have less room to improve but still do, overall.

Our anomaly here is Alex Rins who also has a higher (altered) average grid position (14.6) but « only » gained 1.7 positions on Sundays, far from the guys from group 1.

The good students : Marco Bezzecchi and Pecco Bagnaia

Note : A « 0 » means the race was finished where the rider started. A lack of number means that the finish line wasn’t crossed by the rider.

Positions Gained / Lost by Marco Bezzecchi and Pecco Bagnaia on Sundays

The two Italians have the highest average position on the grid of this group (respectively 7.3 and 6.0) and yet, they still managed to win nearly 2 positions on average on Sundays (respectively +2.1 and +1.8). This shows that, in most cases, they were both able to recover well after a complicated qualifying.

Le Mans does stand out as a huge exception to that fact for the two of them but it proved to be quite a special race compared to the rest of the season.

• Group 4 (riders qualifying between P2 and P4, not really moving from their starting position) : Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez

Positions Gained / Lost by Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez on Sundays

Similarly to what they were doing during sprints, the two Marquez brothers are qualifying so well that they have everything to lose and not much to gain (except stay where they started) once the race has been started.

Technically, in Marc’s case, his couple wins from P4 compensate for his P2 to P12 in Jerez. In Alex’s case, he has a couple more races going backwards and a couple more races winning positions to compensate.

• Group 5 (riders losing positions) : Jack Miller, Fabio Quartararo

Positions Gained / Lost by Jack Miller and Fabio Quartararo on Sundays

« Losing positions » is an overstatement in Jack Miller’s case because he’s simply not gaining on average but his average grid position should have him gaining 2-3 positions like the rest of group 2.

Fabio Quartararo’s AGP should have him between group 3 and group 4, at least staying stable around where he started. Unfortunately, the Yamaha rider went backwards more often than not, as evidenced by the chart above and the chart under.

Races finished higher / equal / lower to grid position for each rider

Fabio Quartararo truly appears as an outlier with his 4-0-14 (better-same-lower) record. He’s the only rider to have more often gone backward than up. One rider is 50/50 with a 7-0-7 record (Johann Zarco) and then everyone was more often finishing higher than they started.

Two riders never finished lower than their starting position : Brad Binder (14.8 altered AGP) and Somkiat Chantra (21.4 altered AGP).

Comparison of the positions gained / lost during races with the ratio positions gain or loss / altered AGP

It’s not surprising to find, ignoring Fabio Quartararo with his negative gain, the same top 4 as earlier, albeit in a different order. Then, Pecco Bagnaia and Marco Bezzecchi confirm that they were doing well considering their average position on the grid and we can also see how guys like Somkiat Chantra, Miguel Oliveira and Alex Rins should have been doing better considering their AGP.

extra

The rider who has been in the points the most is once again Alex Marquez with 19 occurrences (DNF in Le Mans, Assen and Brno). 4 riders follow him with one less race in the points : Brad Binder, Fabio Quartararo, Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi.

9 riders were always in the points when finishing a Grand Prix : the 5 riders mentioned above along with Franco Morbidelli (19 starts, 3 DNFs), Marc Marquez (18 starts, 2 DNFs), Ai Ogura (18 starts, 4 DNFs) and Jorge Martin (7 starts, 3 DNFs).

The whole grid scored points on Sunday at least 4 times (Jorge Martin is last but he obviously participated in less races than the rest of the grid). Number goes up to 5 then (Somkiat Chantra) and after that it’s at least 8 times in the points for everybody else.

Two riders only had one Sunday DNF : Luca Marini (19 starts) and Somkiat Chantra (17 races). Considering riders who participated in all Grand Prix in 2025, Alex Rins finished the most amount of races (2 DNFs over the 22 rounds).

Joan Mir did start every Sunday race but he only crossed the finish line on 9 occasions (13 DNFs). Then, two riders from other factories had 7 DNFs each : Pecco Bagnaia and Jack Miller.

Each Sunday race had between 1 and 8 DNFs, for an average of 4.4 DNFs per race.

Most races were won from poles (12) but the Marquez brothers won from P4 on 4 occasions (Jerez for Alex; Assen, Spielberg and Misano for Marc). The winners starting from the lowest positions on the grid were Marco Bezzecchi in Silverstone (P10) and Johann Zarco in Le Mans (P11).

Position of the winner on the grid	Number of races
P1	12
P2	2
P3	–
P4	5
P5	–
P6	1
P7 / P8 / P9	–
P10	1
P11	1

sprints vs. races

starters & finishers

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
Austria	20	2	18	20	2	18
Hungary	21	3	18	21	5	16
Catalonia	24	6	18	24	7	17
San Marino	22	3	19	23	7	16
Japan	23	5	18	21	3	18
Indonesia	19	5	14	19	5	14
Malaysia	22	2	20	22	4	18
Australia	23	3	20	23	4	19
Portugal	21	3	18	21	3	18
Valencia	24	2	22	24	7	17
Averages	21.8	2.7	19.1	21.5	4.4	17.1

The 2025 season proved that once again, you usually have less riders finishing the race on Sunday compared to Saturday (19 finishers on average for sprints, 17 finishers on average for races).

On 5 occasions we lost at least one rider from Saturday to Sunday (even two in Termas and Motegi). On 2 occasions we gained a rider (Joan Mir) who had just skipped the sprint (illness in Losail, neck pain from a Friday crash in Misano).

Season	Average number of Sprint DNFs	Average number of Race DNFs
2023	2.2	4.6
2024	3.5	4.1
First 12 rounds of 2025	2.2	4.2
Last 10 rounds of 2025	3.0	5.0
All of 2025	2.7	4.4

We will note that it seemed more complicated to finish a race in the second half of the season compared to the first.

Overall, while 2024 was a year where the amount of DNFs were similar on Saturdays and Sundays, 2025 went back to 2023’s tendencies with sprints more quiet than Sunday races.

comparison of the AFPs

Rider	Sprints AFP	Races AFP	Difference
Ai Ogura	12,2	10,2	-2,0
Álex Marquez	3,8	3,9	0,1
Álex Rins	15,1	12,9	-2,2
Brad Binder	10,3	8,5	-1,8
Enea Bastianini	11,7	10,4	-1,3
Fabio Di Giannantonio	5,5	7,9	2,4
Fabio Quartararo	6,5	8,7	2,2
Fermin Aldeguer	8,3	8,4	0,1
Franco Morbidelli	7,1	6,5	-0,6
Jack Miller	12,3	11,7	-0,6
Joan Mir	10,4	8,2	-2,2
Johann Zarco	9,2	9,7	0,5
Jorge Martin	12,8	8,5	-4,3
Luca Marini	11,1	9,1	-2,0
Marc Marquez	1,5	2,0	0,5
Marco Bezzecchi	5,9	5,3	-0,6
Maverick Viñales	11,5	11,6	0,1
Miguel Oliveira	14,4	13,5	-0,9
Pecco Bagnaia	8,1	4,2	-3,9
Pedro Acosta	6,9	6,0	-0,9
Raúl Fernández	10,7	9,1	-1,6
Somkiat Chantra	18,9	16,4	-2,5

By the force of things and the nature of the AFP (which ignores the DNFs and only consider finishing results), the races value is expected to be better than the sprints one. It’s the case for a vast majority of the grid:

• 15 riders have a races AFP strictly inferior to their sprints AFP,
• 3 riders have almost the same AFP (0.1 of difference, not significant) : Alex Marquez (3.8 / 3.9), Fermin Aldeguer (8.3 / 8.4) and Maverick Viñales (11.5 / 11.6),
• 2 riders have a slightly bigger difference between their AFPs (0.5) : Marc Marquez (1.5 / 2.0) and Johann Zarco (9.2 / 9.7).

Those 5 last riders have overall good results on both racing days of the weekend. Those results can be explained by the fact that they’re pushing their bikes to their maximum and/or don’t exactly have much room to improve to begin with (case of the Marquez brothers for example).

Now, we’re left with 2 riders standing out from the crowd : Fabio Quartararo (+2.3 positions) and Fabio Di Giannantonio (+2.4 positions).

In the case of the Yamaha rider, it’s not exactly surprising because he has actually talked about the lack of pace of his bike and essentially, despite his good fast lap times, the longer he races, the longer other riders have to overtake him. The grip issues of the Yamaha also impedes Fabio more in the longer races.

Regarding Fabio Di Giannantonio, I don’t exactly have an explanation to offer. He stands out on Saturdays with the 3rd best sprints AFP but his races AFP only have him P7. In sprints, the Italian only had 2 results below P8 but in Sunday races he had 8 of them.

global analysis by factory

results

AQP, Sprints AFP and Races AFP of all the main grid, ranked by best Races AFP within factories and then within teams

Note : the averages in the table above account for the number of qualifying sessions / sprints / races each rider participated in. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the results from wildcards and replacement riders haven’t been included.

I will focus on the differences between riders of the same team / factory in a dedicated article coming out later. Here, I will only focus on the global picture of each factory.

Now, if we put the data in charts, it gets easier to notice a couple of things.

Comparison of the AQP, Sprints AFP and Races AFP by factory

Comparison of the AQP, Sprints AFP and Races AFP within each factory

Ducati is a step above the rest but it’s still interesting to note that the gap between Ducati and Aprilia has slimmed down since the first part of the season (see all the numbers here) (gap between the two factories going from 7.1 to 5.3 in qualifying, 5.6 to 3.9 in sprints, 3.7 to 2.3 in races). This is both due to Ducati doing a bit worse in the second half and Aprilia doing better (big results from Marco Bezzecchi and Raul Fernandez in particular).

Then, the rankings follow the Championship rankings with Aprilia in 2nd, KTM in 3rd, Honda in 4th and Yamaha in 5th. This order stands for all 3 data observed except Yamaha is a little special and they’re actually 3rd in qualifying (almost equal to Aprilia) and 4th in sprints.

Obviously, as mentioned above, the logical steps to expect are an improvement from qualifying to sprint to race, which the grid’s averages are supporting (10.8 in qualifying to 9.5 in sprints to 8.7 in races). This is a phenomenon we can observe easily with Aprilia, KTM and Honda.

With Ducati, the improvement is there but much less noticeable. This was to be expected considering the fact that Ducatis have been qualifying high to begin with and there are 6 bikes (so at best, with a top 6 every chance they got, they would have averaged a 3.5).

On the other end, Yamaha is a much different case where their riders presented different behaviors :

• Fabio Quartararo kept losing positions as the weekends progressed,
• Jack Miller had the same exact average for all 3 indicators (11.7 in qualifying and sprints and races),
• Alex Rins didn’t progress between Saturday mornings and Saturday afternoons but he improved on Sundays,
• Miguel Oliveira improved from qualifying to sprint and from sprint to race.

comparison of the order to championship points

What’s actually interesting is the fact that in terms of relativeness, the gap of each factory to Ducati is quite similar to the relativeness in the Constructor Championship points. Qualifying is a little aside but with sprints and races, you can see Aprilia and KTM in the same tier and then Honda and Yamaha in another one.

Comparison of the AQP, Sprints AFP, Races AFP and the Constructor Championship Points in relation to Ducati

Note : the % of the first 3 charts is the Ducati value divided by the one of the other factories. For the Championship points, it’s the points of each factory divided by the Ducati points.

Race points are not linear like race positions so comparing the points % to the rest isn’t very useful. The order and gap between factories is what’s more important to read here.

evolution between the first half of the season and the second

introduction

In my mid-season article, I studied the evolution between 2024 and the first half of 2025. Obviously, back then the change of factories for half of the grid had quite the impact on the AQP and AFPs.

Now, let’s compare what happened with riders staying on the same bike, getting used to it and riding with some evolutions throughout the season.

Obviously, the gaps are smaller than what we could observe mid-season but there were still a few things to notice.

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

qualifying

the numbers

Position Gained / Lost in AQP before the first and the second half of 2025

As expected, most of the gaps are not entirely significant and most of the grid falls into that -2.5 / +2.5 positions movement. That being said, I think it’s worth it to have a word on our top 4 and bottom 3 (I would do bottom 4 but Jorge Martin only participated in 2 qualifying sessions in the first half so that’s not much to compare his second half and 6 sessions to).

the ups

After Brno, Marco Bezzecchi was P4 in the championship with a 57 points gap to Pecco Bagnaia in P3. He ended the season in P3 with 46 points on Pedro Acosta in P4. Marco obviously had better sprints & races results (as we will see in the following sections) but things started with a solid improvement of his qualifying. His best qualifying position in the first half was a P3 and he qualified P10 or less on 6 occasions. After the summer, the Aprilia rider scored 5 poles and his other results were two P2, a P10, a P12 and a P14.

Luca’s best position on the grid was a P6 (achieved twice, in Misano and Mandalika).

His best qualifying position pre break was a P6 in Brno and he qualified P16 or below on 6 occasions. Post break, only one P16 position and more importantly, Raul went P3-P4-P15-P4 to finish the year.

Finally, Pedro Acosta nearly gained 3 positions (+ 2.9) but contrary to the riders mentioned above, Pedro was already always qualifying to Q2 in the first half (with the exception of Silverstone). Before the break, Pedro qualified P8 or less on 6 occasions (50% of the time). After the break, except for the P9 in Barcelona, Pedro always qualified P7 or higher, with the high of a P2 in Portimao.

the downs

At the very bottom of the list is Maverick Viñales but to be quiet honest, considering how much he has struggled to come back from his shoulder injury, I don’t think anything he produced after Sachsenring is representative of what he’s able to do on the KTM, especially after the promising first rounds he had in 2025 (8 Q2 quali in 11 rounds before his Sachsenring crash which actually took place in Q2 there).

Then, a rider who clearly had a better first half of the season in every regard : Pecco Bagnaia. Before the break, Pecco always went to Q2, had 6 front rows (including one pole), 4 second rows and two P11s. After the break, he stayed in Q1 4 times and had 3 front rows (including two poles).

The last rider I’ll mention here is Johann Zarco. The LCR rider was the best Honda qualifier by a margin in the first half but he went down to third behind the two factory riders in the second half. 2 Q1 stays in the first half (17%) turned into 4 in the second half (40%) (with two P18s and a P19).

sprints

the numbers

Position Gained / Lost in Sprints AFP before the first and the second half of 2025

notes

Since all the detailed numbers are available above and doing sprints and races would have me repeating myself a lot, I’ll only take a moment here to talk about the riders who had different tendencies in the evolution of their sprints AFP and races AFP.

Actually, the one note I’ll make on the chart is the way we can find most of the Ducati riders in the negatives (except Fermin Aldeguer who as a rookie, improved throughout the year) while other factories are on the top, showing how the Ducati sprints domination decreased in the second half.

Alex Marquez had similar sprints results (-0.3 positions) but worse races results (-2.3 positions). Worse being quite relative because his averages still put him at P5 on Sundays. What’s interesting to note is the fact that in the first half, Alex’s races AFP was exactly one position above his sprints AFP and in the second half, it was the exact opposite. This means that overall, Alex has stayed pretty consistent with his results.

Jack Miller, on the other hand, had similar sprints results (+ 0.2 positions) but his Sunday results got much worse (-3.0 positions).

Marc Marquez could be in there but his case doesn’t really count because his improvement on races his mostly due to his Jerez P12 tanking his first half average and then, sprints wise, he did worse in the second half simply because of the P7 in Mandalika. Nothing to really worry about.

The actual 3rd rider I wanted to include here is Miguel Oliveira with stable sprints (+ 0.2 positions) but improved Sunday races (+2.2 positions). In the fist half, Miguel never finished higher than P13 on a Sunday. In the second half, he had 6 results between P12 and better.

races

the numbers

Position Gained / Lost in Races AFP before the first and the second half of 2025

the ups

The top 3 riders who improved the most on Sundays are also the top 3 riders who improved the most on qualifying, albeit not in the same order.

Our most improved rider, who nearly averages a gain of 4 positions (+ 3.9) before and after the summer break, is Raul Fernandez. In that first half, Raul had highs like his P5 in Brno (and the two P7 in Le Mans and Mugello) and lows like his P17 in Qatar (and the two P15 in Termas and Jerez). The tendency was already good before the break as Raul’s results were better the closer we got to Brno but Raul was definitely a different rider from Spielberg and on, never placing below P11, winning his first MotoGP race in Phillip Island and finishing the season with a podium in Valencia.

His first half suffers from the first quarter of the season which he did start with two P6 (and a DNF, not accounted for here) but continued with a P9 and two P14s. After his win in Silverstone, though, it felt like Marco Bezzecchi knew what to do with that Aprilia, with a P8-P5-P2-P2 streak before the summer.

The podium closes off with Luca Marini whose first half of the season was interrupted by the huge crash he suffered in Suzuka (making him miss 3 MotoGP race weekends). Besides his Sachsenring’s P6 and Silverstone’s P15, Luca was always placing between P8 and P12 pre break. Post summer, Luca had one P13 in Spielberg to start, a P11 in Portimao, and more importantly, 7 results between P5 and P8, showing consistent progress on the Honda he left a Ducati for two years ago already.

the downs

At the bottom, I won’t talk about Maverick Viñales again because his issues were the same than in qualifying. His results pre-injury were either a real struggle (P16 in Buriram, P18 in Aragon) or really promising (P4 in Jerez, P5 in Le Mans and Assen, not forgetting his amazing Losail podium race before a tyre pressure penalty got to him). Hopefully he can come back healthy in 2026 and exploit the potential he found in that KTM.

Finally, a rider who lost, on average, 3 positions in between the first and second half of 2025 : Jack Miller. From Buriram to Brno, Jack never went lower than P14 and he had a nice P5, P7 and P8. On the other hand, the Australian came back from the break with a P18 in Spielberg and then he never managed to place above P12 until Valencia where he finished the race in P9.

additional notes

We’ll note that along with the Aprilia 1-2, the top 9 contains 3 KTMs and 3 Hondas, showing the progress also made by these two factories. To balance this out, we also have 3 Ducatis in the bottom 7.

Alex Marquez suffers from his first two results post break (P10 in Spielberg, P14 in Balaton Park) while he was still recovering from the hand injury he suffered in Assen before the summer. If we only look at his Sunday races from Barcelona onward (8 rounds, all finished), he has a Races AFP of 3.3 (only -0.6 compared to his first half of 2025).

Also, I think it’s worth noting that Pecco Bagnaia‘s situation may have seemed pretty dire towards the end of the season (and I sure felt bad for him and the 5 DNFs in the last 5 Sundays) but if we ignore the DNFs, Pecco had one win and 3 results between P7 and P9. That being said, Pecco’s Races AFP of the first half gets tanked by his P16 in Le Mans. If we take that result away, his first half Races AFP goes from 4.2 up to 3.0, widening the gap to his 6.3 of the second half.