Marc Marquez’s classiest MotoGP 2025 win the ultimate retort to Rossi-loving haters

The win for Alex Marquez at the Catalan Grand Prix ensured that last weekend’s San Marino round at Misano wasn’t a title decider. In a lot of ways, that was probably a good thing. For starters - with the greatest of respect to Marc Marquez - ending a title battle that has long been a formality in mid-September isn’t brilliant in terms of keeping people engaged until late November.

Secondly, the post-race Misano test kicking off at 9am local time really would have put a bit of a downer on his and Ducati’s championship celebrations. It’s bad enough the Valencia finale also features a test, but at least that’s on a Tuesday to allow a reasonable amount of hangover recovery.

But mainly, Marc Marquez winning a Valentino Rossi-equalling seventh premier class world title in the Italian legend’s backyard would have created a fan and media frenzy that - again - would have drowned out the celebrations.

Even as a factory Ducati rider, Marquez isn’t a major hit in that part of the world. The bad blood that continues to spill over the paddock a decade after the fact between the pair has created a fractured fanbase.

That came to the fore on Saturday, when Marquez crashed out of the lead of the sprint having just passed eventual winner Marco Bezzecchi on lap six. World feed cameras cut to a couple of VR46 cap-wearing individuals celebrating as if they’d won the lottery while also flashing the middle finger to Marquez.

At a circuit named after a rider who died in a MotoGP crash, self-awareness was in a severe short supply. Footage then circulated of Rossi and his entourage celebrating when they saw the Marquez crash. Class walked right out the door on Saturday at Misano…

Marquez was asked and asked again about it after the sprint, but did what he always does: brush it off. And then he did the second thing that he always does in these situations, which is go out and give them something to be really upset about.

He did that at Mugello earlier in the year. After winning the sprint, a (very small, it must be said) section of the crown in the grandstand on the main straight threw some boos out at Marquez. The only person that rilled up was team boss Davide Tardozzi, whose ‘one of us’ outburst has now been immortalised on a t-shirt sported by some fans at Barcelona at the start of the month.

That weekend, Marquez went out and won the grand prix. And that’s what he did again last Sunday at Misano. This time, however, he really had to fight for it. Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi forced Marquez to push in the first half of the race while trailing, and then again at the end when he was in the lead to score an 11th Sunday win of the season.

Marquez turned up on the podium with waving his race suit in front of him, in homage to Barcelona football hero Lionel Messi - who did the same to Madrid fans on their home turf during an El Classico tie-up in 2017 when he scored his 500th goal.

The message that day from the Argentine was thus: I do my talking on the pitch. Marquez did his on the track at Misano.

How Marquez won ‘toughest race’ of 2025 against Bezzecchi

Marquez was genuinely quite annoyed by suggestions coming into the San Marino Grand Prix that he had deliberately delayed his first title match point to not win it on enemy territory.

When he slid out of the lead of Saturday’s sprint at Turn 15, any thoughts that he is simply stage managing his 2025 championship were firmly put to bed. He later explained that he pushed too hard at that moment and wasn’t considering his front tyre temperature was still high from following Bezzecchi in the first laps.

It was a sprint he didn’t need to win, but equally it was a sprint he didn’t need to risk scoring nothing in. After all, that crash could have resulted in an injury. But for Marquez, maintaining that full-throttle mentality is essential to stop these mistakes from being a regular occurrence.

That was his first non-finish of any kind since Austin, when he fell out of the lead of the grand prix. And it was his first race crash since Jerez. So, there is method to his madness.

For the grand prix, altering that approach would likely not have put him in a position to win. From fourth on the grid he jumped up to second, as polesitter Bezzecchi took the lead again as he did 24 hours earlier.

There really wasn’t much in their lap times. Bezzecchi was around 0.4s faster on the third lap as he tried to test the waters. But Marquez responded, as the gap tug-of-warred back and forth. At its highest, Bezzecchi’s lead stood at 0.550s across the line. At the start of lap 12, when Marquez moved into the lead, the pair were split by 0.166s.

A move was coming, but Bezzecchi did ultimately make it easy for the factory Ducati rider. At Turn 8, he ran well wide and Marquez rode right on through. The Aprilia rider had felt better under braking on the soft rear all weekend, but on the medium in the race he found it harder to understand where the limit was.

He says at that moment he got “a strange movement” when he made a “small mistake” and was scared about locking the front, leading him to release the front brake and let Marquez come through.

Marquez took around half a second on Bezzecchi because of this, but the latter’s lap times were straight back on the money as he set about trying retake what was his. Then Marquez’s pace dropped into the 1m32s on lap 14 as he exceeded track limits for three consecutive tours to earn a warning.

His explanation for this goes a long way in understanding what caused Bezzecchi’s Turn 8 error.

“In those laps when Marco did the mistake and the next laps, the braking points changed completely and looks like the wind was pushing in a different direction,” he said. “And on that Turn 8, on Turn 11, 12, the wind was pushing in an opposite way and I touched the green two, three times on that Turn 11. Then I slowed down my pace and then I checked again the brake points and I attacked again.”

Marquez was back into the 1m31s on lap 18 and would set his fastest lap on the 25th tour. By now he was emptying the tank because Bezzecchi was pushing him too. It was similar to the Dutch Grand Prix, when the pair were line astern and on the edge of error. And title permutations were not at the forefront of either of their minds.

“We were pushing more than usual. But it was his home GP and he had the extra motivation. And I had extra motivation from yesterday’s crash,” Marquez said. “Behind Marco, I already understood that he was riding well. I was there. I was not far. When I had a bit more speed than him in the first half of the race, he was defending that Turn 6 in a good way. But he was then exiting a little bit slower, so then he was braking later on Turn 8 to try to defend.

“I win the race and it was one of the toughest victories, together with Assen, that also Marco was pushing me. The heart rate was super high in the last laps and I was not thinking about the championship, and I think Marco was not thinking about the championship. Just we were thinking on the race.”

Bezzecchi/Aprilia threat building for Ducati

Marquez heaped praise on Bezzecchi’s response to his pace in the closing stages of the grand prix, even if his efforts would prove futile. The Italian admitted “from mid-race to the end we suffered more with our bike compared to him”, which puts Bezzecchi’s speed into even greater focus.

Both riders netted track limits warnings and by the final few laps it was clear this would be a grand prix decided on a mistake rather than a true duel.

That said, Aprilia gave Bezzecchi a bike to be on pole with, win the sprint on and come very close to a second grand prix victory of the season on. As KTM’s recent podium charge wilted and the rest of the Ducati stable outside of Alex Marquez failed to give Marc Marquez much to think about, Aprilia and Bezzecchi - as they have been so often in 2025 - were his closest challenger.

The title is now guaranteed to stay in the Marquez household, and 32-year-old Marc Marquez is more than likely going to add a seventh to premier class crown to his career total next time out in Japan. To do so, he just needs to outscore Alex Marquez by three points by the end of the Motegi weekend.

But Aprilia is very much in a position to gatecrash those celebrations. The RS-GP worked well at stop-and-go venues Red Bull Ring and Balaton Park recently, and Bezzecchi continues to get faster and faster on that package.

Aprilia can do nothing to alter the destiny of this world championship. But Misano reinforced the fact that it can certainly give Ducati something to think about as the winter approaches…

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