Big question mark over KTM | Five Argentinian MotoGP talking points

MotoGP’s second round of 2025 takes it from Thailand to Argentina, as Termas de Rio Hondo hosts the Argentinian Grand prix for the first time since 2023.

Last time out in Thailand, Marc Marquez dominated with two race wins to shoot to the top of the standings. He is the man to beat already.

Reigning champion Jorge Martin will again miss out due to injury in Argentina.

Here are five crunch talking points before the action begins this weekend.

Marc Marquez, specialist in Argentina

If Bezzecchi and Aprilia are to win this weekend they will not only have to beat Ducati but also Marc Marquez, who by now are handily paired.

Marquez is not only the championship leader and not only the the winner of the previous Grand Prix on arrival in Argentina; but the eight-time World Champion is also the most successful rider in the history of MotoGP at Termas.

The Spanish rider has won there on three occasions: 2014, 2016, and 2019. He should also have won in 2015 when he chose the wrong tyre and ultimately crashed out while battling with Valentino Rossi, 2017 when he crashed while leading by two seconds, and 2018 when he rode his bike backwards on the grid to receive one ride-through penalty before incurring a time penalty at the end of the race having made contact with most of the field as he scythed his way into the top-10.

The only two Termas races you can say without a doubt Marquez was not in contention to win are the 2022 and 2023 editions, both of which he was unable to contest through injury.

As a result, Marquez is the clear favourite this weekend even without considering his ominous Thailand performance.

In a way, Marquez winning this weekend would almost not be a story at all, but just that itself is indicative of where the Ducati Lenovo Team rider holds the series at present.

Alex Marquez a challenger to his brother

If Marc Marquez’s dominance in Thailand was fairly expected, the two second places of Alex Marquez were much less so.

After Francesco Bagnaia was out of Q2 on Friday and forced into Q1, everyone expected that he would improve on Saturday. And he did, so when he was beaten to second by the #73 Gresini Racing Ducati in the Sprint, everyone expected that he would improve again on Sunday and improve his position in the Grand Prix.

This time, though, he did not. Or, at least, not enough to beat Alex Marquez, who led 15 laps (somewhat artificially, admittedly) and was never under any critical pressure from Bagnaia even after he relinquished that lead.

Argentina has also been a good track for Marquez in the past; not to the extent of his brother, but he was third behind the aforementioned Zarco and Bezzecchi in the wet 2023 race.

So, while most people are probably expecting Bagnaia to jump past the younger, taller of the Marquezes this weekend, perhaps it won’t be that simple for the Italian.

What's up with KTM?

It’s hard to know exactly what to say about KTM because they seem to be in the worst position you can be in: not at the front, but also not at the back. It’s not a disaster yet for KTM, but it’s not great either. They’re middling, and therefore somewhat invisible.

Pedro Acosta’s crash in the Grand Prix in Thailand was nothing new or unexpected, but at least when he was crashing out in Motegi last year he was trying to win the race.

The Austrian brand’s only real cause for positivity in Buriram was the race of Enea Bastianini, who after an awful winter, awful practice, awful qualifying, and an awful Sprint, was able to go from 20th to ninth in the opening race of the season.

But, while it was a turnaround of sorts for the Italian, it was still just a ninth place.

Brad Binder was only one place and 0.124 seconds better in eighth, while Maverick Vinales was out of the points in 16th.

There’s a finite amount of time that middling remains middling in racing, eventually it becomes failing. The process of moving from one to the other might be sped up for KTM this year by the apparently improving Japanese brands, but KTM could arrest the slide in Argentina – a place they have been victorious before, thanks to Brad Binder in the 2023 Sprint.

Track grip could decide the result

Of course, everything that happens this weekend in Argentina will be in some way conditioned by the track grip.

This itself doesn’t make Argentina unique, although the severity of the grip, or lack thereof, at Termas de Rio Hondo is perhaps most notable in Argentina compared to any other MotoGP venue.

It’s partly why Marc Marquez has been so effective there, and why riders like Jorge Lorenzo never really stood out there, because a high-corner-speed style is typically less effective and more difficult to exploit when the grip is low.

This year’s Argentinian Grand Prix is likely to be especially grip-dominated due to the amount of time that MotoGP has been absent from the circuit (the 2024 event was cancelled, so MotoGP hasn’t been back since 2023), as well as the lack of other racing that takes place there.

It is pure speculation to say how track conditions will be before anyone has even walked the track, but it might be reasonable to expect a decent amount of cleaning to be going on in the first sessions of the weekend.

Marco Bezzecchi and Aprilia to threaten Ducati

The top Aprilia in Thailand finished fifth, and Marco Bezzecchi finished sixth, so it’s slightly odd to be positing the Italian as not only Aprilia’s best hope of a strong result in Argentina this weekend, but also the rider most likely to be able to challenge the dominant Ducatis.

But Bezzecchi, like Aprilia, has a strong history at Termas de Rio Hondo. Only one year after Aprilia was on the top step of the podium thanks to Aleix Espargaro in 2022, Bezzecchi won the 2023 edition of the Argentinian Grand Prix on a year-old Desmosedici, his first MotoGP win.

The conditions were not awful, but affirmatively wet, and Bezzecchi dominated, winning by four seconds over Johann Zarco.

It was in wet conditions in 2018 that Bezzecchi had taken his first Grand Prix victory in any class, winning the Moto3 race on the PruestelGP KTM by 4.6 seconds over Aron Canet.

On both occasions, Bezzecchi thrust himself into a sort of title contention. In 2018, he won twice more – in Austria, then Japan – before ultimately missing out on the the title to Jorge Martin; while in 2023 Bezzecchi went on to win in France and India before a training crash ahead of the Indonesian Grand Prix caused his season to tail off in the final races.

Bezzecchi has so far acquitted himself well as an Aprilia Racing rider, but the performance of Ai Ogura in Thailand means that, after a preseason in which the Italian proved his value to the Noale marque, the pressure is back on the #72 to deliver the results the bike is capable of.

In Thailand, that was a top-five, maybe a top-four. In Argentina, it might be just a little bit more.