The MotoGP riders have now raced over half the races of the 2025 season. As always we’ve been surprised, we’ve been happy and even sad sometimes. There are a lot of things to look back to, unexpected scenarios, a lot of emotions, speed and disappointment.

The world champion nowhere to find
Before the season even really started, during the Sepang  tests Jorge Martin suffered from a crash and wasn't able to continue the tests. Due to his injuries he had to miss the last two days of tests to undergo surgery. He then started his recovery with the intention to get back in shape to race in Buriram, his hopes were soon crushed by another injury that brought him back in surgery.
After missing entirely the first three rounds of the year Jorge Martin decided to make his return in Qatar. He qualified fourteenth for both races, ended the sprint race sixteen and didn’t cross the finish line of the Grand Prix due to another impressive crash. He was directly taken to the hospital where they discovered eleven rib fractures and a collapsed lung and because of that he had to stay at the hospital in Qatar for around two weeks before going back to his country. In the end, Jorge Martin  missed more or less half of the season

Even when the world champion wasn't there  many rumours about his future with Aprilia ran around the paddock (later confirmed by his manager and himself). It was explained that if the performance from Aprilia did not improve he was ready to leave the team before his contract ended. It really shook Aprilia knowing that the world champion they had just signed, who did not even finish an entire race weekend, already wanted to leave. (Later seeing the pace and results his teammate Marco Bezzechi was able to pull out of the bike he decided to keep going with Aprilia.)

The 2024 World Champion returned at Czech Grand Prix with quite good performances he went straight to Q2 and qualified twelve, even if he ended the sprint race out of the points he recovered the next day securing a seventh position in during the Grand Prix and scoring his first points of the season and also his first points with Aprilia.    

Hard times for Bagnaia
The two first rounds of the season already showed how bad Bagnaia was struggling with the Ducati bike, while his teammate took win after win. Marc Marquez took both wins in both Thailand and Argentina, but the America’s Grand Prix did not happen as expected. Marquez took the win on the Saturday in Austin though he unfortunately crashed during the main race leaving the win to Bagnaia. This win was the only one Francesco Bagnaia earned during the first half of the season, it was also the start of a chaotic and disappointing half of the season for the Italian.

The part that seemed to hurt the most for him was his home race. The fact he won both the Italian Sprint and the Grand Prix last year surely gave him a lot of hope and everyone expected him to do a lot better during this weekend. However he still appeared on the Sprint podium at the Mugello but finished out of it the following day ending in fourth position. 
During the following 3 weekends he stepped on the podium only twice, during the Assen and the Sachsenring Grand Prix. Though he took pole position in Brno he couldn’t do better than fourth.

93 Superhuman
After he decided to part ways with Honda at the end of the 2023 season he decided to take the risk to trust Ducati. He was firstly teamed up with his brother in Gresini racing for the 2024 season and then promoted to the official Ducati team alongside Francesco Bagnaia. Even if many know his story and everyone knew Marc Marquez was in fact able to perform well, there were a lot of question marks surrounding his potential performances next to Bagnaia who already won two world titles with this team. We were all expecting for Marc Marquez to come back on top, but we were definitely all mind blown by how big his comeback was.

Though everyone was expecting more competition from his teammate and a bigger rivalry within the team, his statistics are really impressive. So far Marc Marquez won ten out of eleven sprint races and eight out of eleven Grand Prix. The rare times he lost was against his brother Alex Marquez during the British Sprint race and the Spanish Grand Prix or because the Grand Prix had an unexpected scenario, such as the French and British Grand Prix.

The thing is no one seems to be able to really beat Marc Marquez on a normal race scenario, he’s dominating the 2025 season but more than that he seems to also dominate the bike because no rider can catch him on equal machinery. He’s currently leading the championship by 120 points on Alex Marquez (2nd) and 168 points on Francesco Bagnaia (3rd) after eleven race weekends this season.

From a brother to the other

If his older brother did impress us we have to mention the awesome season Alex Marquez had so far without forgetting he's riding the 2024 Ducati bike like his teammate and they are with Franco Morbidelli the only Ducati riders for whom it's the case. 
Alex ‘only’ won a Sprint race (Silverstone) and a Grand Prix (Jerez), but he appeared as his brother's biggest rival during the beginning of this season. Often on the podium Alex Marquez has shown a lot of consistency, even if lately his results faltered following a crash he had that caused a hand fracture. 
Alex is currently second in the championship with 261 points and is ahead of Bagnaia by 48 points.    

Yamaha, pole positions, a love hate relationship?
During the winter testing Yamaha improved by 0.800, it was a huge step forward after last year's overall poor performances. They ended eighth in the team standings and their riders were thirteen and eighteen in the riders standing. This year after the first half of the season their riders are 9th (Quartararo)  and 18th (Rins) in the championship.

The huge difference of almost ten places in the championship between their riders does question whether Yamaha made the right choice by signing Alex Rins who does not seem to find any pace in that bike these last two years. Obviously Yamaha would not expect the same performances from a world champion and a rider like Alex Rins, and even if the other riders with Yamaha machinery (Pramac) do not get much more pace out of it he is still behind Jack Miller most of the time. It may be this bike does not fit his driving style and if it’s the case Yamaha should and probably will think about another option than him when the time of signing someone will occur.

It is clear that Yamaha did not yet find any race pace. However Yamaha did find a lot more pace into a fast lap, which ultimately concluded into great grid positions. Fabio Quartararo achieved 4 pole positions so far this season, his first pole was in Jerez, he also took pole at this home race, even if the races didn’t end in the way he wished for. He also took the pole at the British Grand Prix that ended really painfully and in Assen for the Dutch Grand Prix. The French rider also surprised us a couple of times during a lot of races, because even without race pace with that bike he appeared on the Spanish Grand Prix podium in second place and also appeared on a sprint podium at the Sachsenring (p3).

Crazy season
Overall we’ve had an entertaining first half of the season even if the Ducati bikes are mostly dominating it we’ve seen teams like Yamaha and Aprilia trying to fight with the best. Also there are teams and riders that took us by surprise at some point, one of them Johann Zarco who won his home race and then went onto the podium during the following race in Silverstone. During the same race it’s Marco Bezzechi who took the race win, surprising everyone by how much pace he could find in his Aprilia.
Honorable mention to the performances of the KTM bikes, lately they secured really good points and locked two top 3 in Brno with Enea Bastianini (Tech3) third in the sprint race and Pedro Acosta (KTM) third during the Grand Prix.
The season has been entertaining so far and we’ll have many riders, many teams to look after and surely many surprises coming for the rest of it.