Marc Marquez defeat by Ducati rival hinted at by Austrian MotoGP pace analysis

As the MotoGP paddock brushes the last of the beach sand from between its toes and returns to racing on Friday at the Austrian Grand Prix following a three-week summer break, there is an air of formality enveloping the Red Bull Ring.

Facing the media on Thursday ahead of Friday’s practices, Marc Marquez stood firm when facing a question in the press conference about the possibility of winning a seventh premier class title as early as the San Marino Grand Prix in mid-September.

“Impossible” he branded it. It’s unlikely, save for an utter nightmare couple of races for Alex Marquez, but it is mathematically possible.

The fact that such a scenario is even something to consider goes a long way to highlighting just how dominant Marc Marquez has been in 2025 and how little of a title battle anyone considers there to be on the eve of the 13th round of the campaign.

After 12 rounds, the factory Ducati rider has won eight grands prix and 11 sprints. That has netted him a championship lead of 120 points, with Marquez averaging 31.75 points per round and holds just shy of 90% of the total maximum score possible. He’s so dominant that even he admitted after the Czech Grand Prix - his fifth 37-point weekend in a row - that this is his championship to lose now.

And so we turn our gaze to the beautifully-situated 10-turn Red Bull Ring perched on the Styrian hills (if you’re looking for a Sound of Music reference, then you can jog on). After 105 minutes of practice on Friday - some of which interrupted by a red flag for a spate of Yamaha crashes in PR - the results sheets tell an all too familiar tale.

Championship leader Marc Marquez was comfortably fastest in FP1, and stole top honours for the day in PR by just under 0.250s to pick things up where he left them at the end of the Czech Grand Prix weekend.

He just about kept his eyes from rolling into the back of his head in the pre-event press conference when he was asked for what he estimated to be the thousandth time about whether or not he could end his Red Bull Ring win drought in 2025.

The Austrian venue is just one of four tracks on the current calendar (one of them being new circuit Balaton Park) where Marquez hasn’t won at yet. And he doesn’t need to be reminded of how many times he came within inches of doing so only to be beaten in epic last-lap duels with factory Ducati riders when he was at Honda.

On the best bike and carpet bombing the stats sheets with win after win in 2025, this year seems as good as any to finally alter the script at the Red Bull Ring. And while practice pace suggests he is very much in touch of doing so, defeat at the hands of a Ducati rider may just be something he will have to contend with… again.

Bagnaia to start second half of the season with a bang?

Had the 2025 season so far gone in the direction anticipated at the start of the campaign, MotoGP would be coming to Austria very much looking at Pecco Bagnaia as the hot favourite given his recent run of three successive grand prix wins at the Red Bull Ring.

In recent years, Bagnaia has been embarrassingly good in Austria. Last season, he was 3.232s up the road at the chequered flag, while in 2023 he was 5.191s in front of the field. His hard braking style suits the Red Bull Ring perfectly.

But it is this which hasn’t suited the GP25. Bagnaia has known this for some time and no fix has been found. On Thursday, he admitted the problem is with him to adapt but was buoyed by finding “nothing comparable” in his riding now compared to the last two years when watching back his old races during the summer break. In short: he knows his true form hasn’t deserted him.

And one thing that will certainly help him in Austria is the mandated 355mm brake discs. This was something he tried at the Aragon Grand Prix and to good effect, as it gave him back the front end feeling he’d been missing. Unfortunately, that’s not a long-term solution as not every track has heavy enough braking zones to use the 355mm discs on. Red Bull Ring, however, does.

Both Bagnaia and team-mate Marc Marquez were strong on long running pace in PR. And it was Bagnaia who edged ahead ever so slightly.

Both riders used medium rear rubber, with Marquez tallying up 17 laps on the tyre and Bagnaia 16. Bagnaia did a slightly longer representative run of eight laps compared to Marquez’s six, with the former’s average pace a shade quicker at 1m29.689s versus 1m29.737s for his team-mate.

“I’m very positive about what I felt today, in terms of braking,” he said. “I was able to be very competitive in the braking zones. So, happy. It’s the first time I’ve felt this feeling with the front this season.”

Bagnaia does concede that the higher mass brake discs are probably a factor in this. But a confident Bagnaia is a fast Bagnaia, and there would be nothing he would love more than to stop Marquez’s winning run in Austria of all places.

His confidence in braking will help him in managing the high wear on the rear tyres expected for this Sunday’s grand prix. He noted that it was “higher than last year”. But not having to try and make up ground forcing the bike out of corners should keep him even with his main rivals.

As for Marquez, he wasn’t unhappy with his day. Though it took him some time to find “the perfect feeling”, he got there come the end of the day. And while he feels he is in the mix, he is wary of the Bagnaia threat.

“Pecco has always been super strong here,” Marquez said. “He won here the last two years in a very good way. So, today also he was super good on the race pace - maybe the strongest one, so in the end Pecco is a two-time world champion and this is one of his circuits.”

Is new electronics rule aiding one Ducati rival on home turf?

The Austrian Grand Prix always comes with big pressure for KTM, but especially so in 2025. Under new ownership with Bajaj Auto and coming off the back of a return to the podium last time out at Brno, KTM needs a great weekend on home soil.

The signs after Friday practice, though, are encouraging. KTM brought updates to the bike after a hard-working summer break, with its riders debuting a new exhaust and Ducati-style aero fairing in a bid to find much-needed performance.

Pedro Acosta, who scored a double podium at Brno, was second-fastest at the end of Friday’s running and showed decent race pace (as did stablemates Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini) even if its longevity remains to be see due to his relatively short stint on medium rubber.

He was encouraged by his speed with the updated KTM, noting that it improved upon the biggest area of weakness - turning - on the bike.

“I tried them already in the Aragon test and I was pushing the last four races for them to bring them because they were super great and exactly in the point that we need it,” he said. “But anyway, sometimes when you want to do the correct things it takes some time. No expectations for tomorrow, normally Ducatis wake up on Saturdays.”

The top speed of the KTM is also a huge benefit at a circuit like Red Bull Ring, with the brand topping the charts at 315.7km/h in Practice.

But Bagnaia theorises as well that perhaps KTM has also been able to close the gap to Ducati because of the new stability control brought for Austria by the championship as part of an updated ECU software.

Regardless, KTM looks to be turning a corner after a tricky start to the campaign and a repeat of its Brno podium success certainly isn’t out of the question this weekend.