Marc Marquez is the rider to beat in 2025 at Ducati. The 32-year-old has been utterly dominant this season as he marches towards his seventh MotoGP title.
Marquez has won 11 races out of 16 in 2025, including Sprint races, as he asserts his dominance over the field on the GP25. The Spaniard is 32 points clear of brother Alex Marquez and 93 points ahead of teammate Francesco Bagnaia in third.
Kevin Schwantz says Marquez makes MotoGP ‘boring’ due to his dominance with Ducati. No rider has been able to get near the 32-year-old on merit, with crashes in Austin and Jerez costing him extra points in 2025.
Marquez can be ‘unbeatable’ with Ducati if he can perfect right-hand corners, says his crew chief Marco Rigamonti. The Spaniard has struggled in that area since his injury to his right arm at Jerez in 2020, but Neil Hodgson saw Marquez was as comfortable as ever through right-hand turns at Aragon.
Marquez’s brother has been his closest competitor in 2025, but Ducati riders find it ‘difficult’ to learn from Marquez as it is hard to explain how he can find extra performance through left-handers. VR46 chief Uccio Salucci has offered his riders some advice, but Valentino Rossi may not approve of it.
Valentino Rossi will resent Uccio Salucci’s advice to VR46 that they ‘need to try to watch’ and learn from Marc Marquez
Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio have been fighting at the front for most of the 2025 season. But it is the former who has the advantage at VR46, despite being on the year-old GP24 with Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer.
Like Bagnaia, Di Giannantonio has been struggling on the GP25, scoring two podiums thus far. Diggia is desperate to have Marquez’s upgraded chassis that ‘guarantees improvement’, as he sits 16 points behind teammate Morbidelli.
Di Giannantonio did not benefit from Bagnaia’s new brake discs on his GP25 as he struggled to find the same feeling. As the 26-year-old and VR46 search for a solution, Salucci told Mowmag that his riders should be looking at Marquez to improve.
“What do you mean, he is a very strong rider!” he said. “At the moment he is the strongest, we need to try to watch what he does, learn from him and try to catch him.”
While it is wise to follow in the footsteps of the championship leader, this will not sit well with VR46 team owner Rossi. The seven-time MotoGP champion had a fierce rivalry with Marquez during their time at Yamaha and Honda respectively.
Rossi will certainly want his team to beat his rival on merit, rather than outright copying Marquez’s style and findings, especially when the Spaniard edges closer to his record of seven titles.
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Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez’s rivalry is still felt to this day in MotoGP
Despite leaving MotoGP in 2022, Rossi and Marquez’s rivalry is still felt around the paddock to this day. The latter is looking on course to match his record of seven titles in 2025.
Rossi’s entourage are worried about Marquez’s form this season as he has been almost unstoppable on the GP25. The Italian will be hoping that his fiercest rival does not match his feat.
Mat Oxley reckons Rossi would have been furious with Morbidelli after his oil leak at Silverstone helped Marquez get back into the race with a red flag. The Ducati rider finished third in the race, before dominating the grid at Aragon.
The legendary rider’s rivalry will go down as one of the most intense in MotoGP’s history and will continue even after Marquez retires. With his rival now in sports car racing, Marquez does not want to follow Rossi’s path, not seeing that as an option for his future.
