Marc Marquez, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Was Losail ever really a ‘weak circuit’ for Marc Marquez? He said both before and after the weekend that it was, but his performance in Qatar totally belied that idea – to the point where you wonder if the Spaniard was simply playing along with the narrative spun by a media corps terrified of another 18 MotoGP weekends with no genuine title battle to write about.
The fact is that Qatar was very much the usual story where Marquez was concerned. Pole position, sprint victory, grand prix victory and two fastest laps. He didn’t lead much of the grand prix but that was simply a case of him controlling his pace and managing his tyres. This looked exactly like the usual template. If that’s what a poor track for Marquez looks like, then one of the last straws his rivals had to clutch at has been rudely snatched away.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
This time it looked like it might just happen for ‘Pecco’. By his usual standards, Bagnaia hit the ground running on Friday. He didn’t have to squeak into Q2 like he had in the previous two rounds. For the first time this year, he was openly optimistic after the first day’s practice. He believed he could threaten factory Ducati team-mate Marquez this time around.
With Saturday’s conditions similar to Friday’s and his homework done, the hard part was supposed to be out of the way as he went into qualifying. But then it all unravelled with a crash that condemned him to 11th on the grid. On top of that, he struggled to launch any kind of recovery with a light fuel load in the sprint. The Sunday podium only served to underline what might have been.
Maverick Vinales, Red Bull KTM Tech 3
Photo by: Karim Jaafar – AFP – Getty Images
Vinales had been stronger than usual in Texas two weeks ago, but the general paddock assumption was that this was down to his affinity for the COTA circuit. It was something of a surprise, therefore, to see him qualify on the second row in Qatar. With usual KTM talisman Pedro Acosta struggling to 12th in qualifying, Tech3 rider Maverick thus emerged as the clear leader of the Austrian brigade in the desert.
While he slipped back in the sprint thanks to a bizarre tyre choice (see below), there was no sign of a classic Vinales disappearing act in the grand prix. He fought his way to the front and led the middle of the race until Marc Marquez decided enough was enough. But crossing the line in second place was more than enough to have Vinales beaming as he cracked the top 10 for the first time in any race this season. That a penalty for tyre pressures demoted him to an official 14th did almost nothing to dampen his spirits.
Losers: Sprint race soft tyre runners
Marc Marquez, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Whether it was down to over-reliance on some piece of software or simply a case of collective mania, the nine riders who started the sprint on soft rear rubber paid a heavy price. These included all four KTMs and all three Hondas (Joan Mir missed out with illness), along with the Yamahas of Jack Miller and Alex Rins. Three of these riders started inside the points but none of them finished there.
It’s not often that entire fleets of bikes get a tyre wear prediction so badly wrong, particularly when practice has played out in even hotter conditions than the race, which in Qatar takes place in the evening. Yes, it is an oversimplification to ascribe the woes of all nine riders to the soft tyre, as there were a couple of caveats. But broadly speaking, this was a group failure for the ages.
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Karim Jaafar – AFP – Getty Images
Yamaha riders had shown flashes of pace so far this season, but Quartararo making the front row in Qatar was something of a leap in performance over one lap – his first appearance inside the qualifying top three since Assen in 2022.
Everyone, Quartararo included, held their collective breath when the sprint got under way. The fear was that the M1 would not be able to replicate its single-lap pace over a race distance. The fact that Quartararo ran fourth most of the way before a last-corner slip to fifth would have been reason enough for Yamaha to have thrown a party.
A flattering seventh place in the grand prix on Sunday was a reality check, but on the whole this was a positive weekend for Yamaha – albeit at a track where the bike historically goes well.
Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing
Photo by: Dorna
Coming into the Qatar weekend, Alex had been nothing if not consistent in 2025. He had finished every sprint and every grand prix in second place – frustrating but nonetheless strong in the context of his career and independent Gresini Ducati machine. He also happened to be leading the championship following brother Marc’s mistake in Texas last time out. In Doha, however, Alex finally hit a speed bump.
While he did secure his now-traditional second place on the grid, Alex had by that stage endured his first crash of the year, in Free Practice 2. The sprint followed a fairly familiar pattern – Alex finished second after mounting nothing more than “half an attack” on Marc.
But the grand prix saw things truly come off the rails. Contact with Marc at the first corner seemed to put him on the back foot and he ended up taking out Fabio di Giannantonio. After serving the resulting long-lap penalty he ended up sixth – 17 points behind Marc instead of two ahead of him.
Fermin Aldeguer, Gresini Racing
Photo by: Noushad Thekkayil – NurPhoto – Getty Images
Following the rookie’s leap to prominence at the previous race in Texas, Aldeguer consolidated his new status as a genuine top 10 contender this weekend. As he continued to take strides in Qatar, it was no surprise to see him qualify the Gresini Ducati inside the top 10.
Aldeguer had been fast in Texas but crashed in the grand prix. This time, he secured strong finishes with fourth in the sprint race and fifth in the grand prix. The latter also saw him defeat team-mate Alex Marquez for the first time, albeit after Alex’s multitude of issues during the race. On top of that, he had far the better weekend of the two vaunted rookies in the field, as Aprilia rider Ai Ogura could not reach his level.
Fabio Di Giannantonio, VR46 Racing Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Although he scored a podium position at the Americas GP, Fabio di Giannantonio returned to his world of frustration in Qatar. Again he seemed to be fundamentally fast on the VR46 GP25, qualifying a decent fifth, before something went wrong come race time.
His sprint trials were fairly undramatic. A poor getaway – specifically the second phase of the start – set the tone for a drop down the order in the early going. He could only recover to sixth place in the short race.
On Sunday, he got under way much better and had just overtaken Alex Marquez for fourth place when the Spaniard dive-bombed him out of points contention heading into Turn 12. A long-lap penalty for Marquez was no help to di Giannantonio, who will feel he should have significantly more than the 48 points he has amassed so far. He lies fifth in the championship, but 30 points shy of team-mate Franco Morbidelli.
In this article
Richard Asher
MotoGP
Marc Marquez
Alex Marquez
Maverick Viñales
Fabio Quartararo
Francesco Bagnaia
Fabio Di Giannantonio
Fermin Aldeguer
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