Revenge tipped for one MotoGP rider after analysis of chaotic Friday at Assen

For all of the criticism MotoGP has taken at various points this year (and a lot of it is valid) for the lack of spectacle on track, the 2025 season has still found its way to turn the form book on its head and at least keep you guessing from time to time.

That was evident in America when Marc Marquez crashed out of a commanding lead, handing victory to his team-mate Pecco Bagnaia and the championship lead over to his younger brother Alex Marquez.

After sweeping Qatar, Marc Marquez crashed again next time out at Jerez, leaving Alex Marquez to take his first win and the championship lead again. Then came the wet drama of Le Mans, where Johann Zarco triumphed for Honda, while the British Grand Prix kept everyone on the edge of their seats until Marco Bezzecchi took the chequered flag for Aprilia.

In the last two events, Marc Marquez has been his dominant best, sweeping his way to back-to-back pole/sprint/grand prix trebles at Aragon and Mugello. The end result was a 40-point lead in the standings coming to this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix and a sense that he has now steadied the ship as far as the title battle goes.

He was cautious on Thursday, noting that his approach was the same as it was at Mugello. Ahead of last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, he hadn’t won at the picturesque Tuscan venue in over 10 years. Assen is similar in that he has only won twice here in MotoGP: in 2014 and 2018, the latter a race that produced well over 100 overtakes in an all-time classic.

That kind of talk, though, is starting to wear thin. While maybe he comes to some circuits needing a bit of time to get up to speed, the idea that he isn’t the favourite is something even his rivals are just flat out denying now. And rightly so.

But Friday at Assen was a reminder that, just because you’re the fastest doesn't mean you’re not indestructible. A few minutes into FP1, Marc Marquez had a massive crash coming through the fast Ramshoek left-hander at Turn 15. The rear let go and he hurt his left arm as he hit the gravel hard where the run-off asphalt ends.

Ducati’s Davide Tardozzi later revealed that it was Marquez’s own mistake that caused the crash, as he downshifted too quickly and lost traction at the rear. He was able to get back out for the end of FP1 and went fastest of all - displaying his well-established resilience.

Then in Practice, he suffered another fast fall - this time at the fast Turn 7 left-hander at Ruskenhoek towards the end of the session. The front washed away from him and he took some considerable knocks to a certain area of his anatomy while bouncing through the gravel. Some checks at the medical centre revealed no major issues after his bruising day.

At the end of what was a twice red-flagged, crash-strewn second session, it was Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo who came through the chaos to lead the day outright.

Yamaha turnaround threatens Silverstone payback

The form of the Japanese marques in 2025 has been promising but inconsistent over the opening nine rounds. That is especially true for Yamaha, who went from scoring three poles on the bounce - as well as a grand prix podium - between Jerez and Silverstone, before slumping at Aragon and Mugello.

Fabio Quartararo in particular complained about rear chatter wreaking havoc with his M1 during the Mugello weekend, while its obvious top speed deficit was laid bare.

But there was always a feeling that Assen could provide a good staging ground for another assault at top positions for Yamaha this year. For starters, the track has the shortest straight on the MotoGP calendar. The overall grip level of the Assen asphalt is good, and while it is going to be warm over the rest of the weekend it won’t be as skin-melting as it was at Aragon and Mugello.

All of this, combined with some tangible gains - according to the 2021 world champion - made for a bright day in the Yamaha camp at Assen.

“This afternoon we managed to get a really great improvement on the setting,” he said. “It’s everything: all details count, I think the layout, the temperature, how the tyre drops, everything matters and we hope to make another step tomorrow with more rubber on the track.”

It wasn’t an all-round perfect day for Quartararo. He wasn’t happy with the bike in FP1, which was evident from the violent shaking the M1 was doing on the run out of the Struben hairpin down the Veenslang.

Whatever Quartararo is doing, however, the other Yamahas are not as he was the only one inside the top 10 at the end of Practice. Team-mate Alex Rins was 13th, 0.675s off the pace, while Praamc duo Miguel Oliveira and Jack Miller were 14th and 16th. This has been a happy hunting ground for Quartararo over the years, though, having finished third in his maiden season in 2019 and then winning in 2019. He even had a sprint podium in 2023 at Assen.

While it would be folly to stand here now and loudly proclaim that Fabio Quartararo is going to win the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix, because the fragmented Practice hasn’t shown a true picture, there is genuine cause for optimism.

Quartararo did a seven-lap representative run sample in Practice on the soft rear (as most of the top 10 in the classification did, with only two on the medium) and emerged with an average pace of 1m32.273s.

While Gresini’s Alex Marquez is faster on that table, his run sample is not large enough to be representative right now. He was confident, however, that he’d “saved” Friday in the afternoon despite an early tumble at Turn 1 and feels his pace is good. Some longer running on Saturday will determine this, but he is - after all - on the bike that Pecco Bagnaia dominated with at Assen last year.

Encouragingly for Quartararo, his pace was better on Friday than both factory Ducati riders Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia. Friday only tells half a story, of course, but race pace and one-lap pace are clearly there for Quartararo at this stage of the weekend.

If he can convert the latter into another strong starting sport, he proved at Silverstone that he can lead races and pull out a buffer when able to run the lines he wants. At Assen, the difficulty in overtaking with modern bikes here is something that could benefit Quartararo.

After the cruel heartbreak of a possible Silverstone win getting away from him due to a faulty ride height device, Assen is currently looking like offering up a chance at redemption for Yamaha.

Marc Marquez’s speed hasn’t been dented by big crashes, but Bagnaia is close

Marc Marquez is probably in for an uncomfortable night’s sleep after assaulting his body the way he did on Friday at Assen. But before his second crash in Practice, he put together a solid bit of long running that puts him right in the thick of the victory battle.

Working with soft rubber, Marquez did a seven-lap representative run at an average pace of 1m32.409s. At the end of his time of the soft, he’d put 12 laps on it - two more than Quartararo did.

Used tyre pace is something we know Marquez has excelled with in 2025, and the fact that he was as fast as he was at Assen despite his crashes is something he considers “a good sign”.

There were encouraging signs from the other side of the factory Ducati box, too.

Pecco Bagnaia was a somewhat defeated figure after last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. At a track he had won at in the last three years, he left with no podium in the grand prix and his usual lack of front feeling returning. The brake disc fix from Aragon didn’t carry over because Mugello didn’t have the same heavy stop zones as the Spanish venue.

Assen is another great circuit for the Italian, having also won the Dutch Grand Prix over the last three years. But if there’s a circuit where you need front end confidence, it’s Assen.

Signs that there was an improvement in this area came towards the end of Practice. Having had his first soft tyre run scuppered by a red flag for Lorenzo Savadori’s crash, Bagnaia went into the closing stages of the session with just one fresh soft at his disposal. And after his first lap, he was only ninth having dropped a heap of time in the last sector - a series of fast lefts leading into the hard stop at the Geert Timmer chicane.

On the next lap, he went to the top of the timesheets with a 1m31.410s having made a significant gain in the last sector. It was a lap good enough for fifth in the end, but enough to get through to Q2.

Encountering no real dramas during his day, Bagnaia’s long run pace was competitive. Though only over a four-lap representative sample, his pace on soft rubber worked out at 1m32.499s - 0.090s off Marquez. At the end of that tyre’s life, he’s put 14 laps on, so two more than his team-mate.

What a strong Friday never accounts for in Bagnaia’s 2025 is the problems he experiences in sprint races on the alternate fuel tank he has to run. Saturday, then, will likely be much the same for the double world champion. But at this stage, he is in the hunt on Sunday - which his early lead battle at Mugello proved he’s still clearly up for.

With a 110-point deficit to Marc Marquez, there is now a sense that Bagnaia has nothing to lose. His team-mate, on the other hand, does. Whatever happens this weekend, Marquez will leave the Netherlands sore but with championship lead. Having wasted healthy advantages already this season, though, he'll be wanting to keep his lead as close to 40 points as he can if he is to be beaten this weekend.

And with what has already happened to him on Friday and with a stomping ground of Sachsenring coming up for him in two weeks’ time, perhaps Marquez’s caution can be tested by his rivals when crunch time comes…