Ranking all seven of Marc Marquez’s MotoGP world titles

After a six-year wait, Marc Marquez is once again a MotoGP world champion, after wrapping up the 2025 title at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Making his MotoGP debut in 2013 with the factory Honda squad, fresh off a successful Moto2 title tilt the year before, Marc Marquez made history by becoming the youngest ever premier class champion.

He followed that up in 2014 with total domination, as he won the first 10 grands prix of the season on his way to a second MotoGP crown. He would win his third in 2016, before sealing a fourth after a tense title battle with Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso the year after.

In 2018, Marquez got even more dominant as he cruised to that year’s championship, before lifting himself 151 points out of reach in 2019 after 12 victories and just one race off of the podium to become a six-time title winner in MotoGP and eight-time overall.

Suffering injury setback in 2020 when he badly broke his arm at the Spanish Grand Prix, Marquez has faced a long and winding road to return to championship winning ways in 2025 with the factory Ducati squad.

And he did so in one of the most impressive seasons for a rider ever.

But how does his 2025 MotoGP title compare to his other six since 2013? 

Crash tasked its five MotoGP writers to rate each of them out of 10 for a maximum score of 50 to create the ultimate ranking.

7. 2017 (38/50) - Marquez faces his stiffest head-to-head title charge yet 

Jordan Moreland - Crash Social Media Manager

It’s hard to call any world championship win the ‘worst’ of someone’s career, but in the glittering career of Marc Marquez, 2017 was a tough route to premier class glory.

After winning his third MotoGP world title in 2016 on, let's be honest, a below par Honda, there was optimism that Honda would dial out the issues of their 2016 machine and give the No.93 something that would make life easier in 2017, well… That didn’t exactly happen.

The arrival of Maverick Vinales at Yamaha in 2017 was a signal of intent; he was there to take the fight to Marquez and Honda. From pre-season testing and the first two rounds of the season, Vinales blitzed the opposition whilst Marc struggled in Qatar and crashed out of the lead in Argentina.

Vinales cracked in COTA with his own crash, as Marquez took his customary win in Texas to get a well-needed score on the board. But the following rounds for Marc delivered underwhelming results, crashes in Le Mans and an out-of-sorts sixth place at Mugello. A precious second at Catalunya covered up a weekend that saw him crash five times (six if you include him tripping over the starter motor in pit-lane!)

The title charge was still within reach, but it wasn’t Maverick Vinales leading the way. It was someone that wasn’t on Marquez’s radar: it was Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso. Dovi picked up two wins at Mugello and Catalunya to launch Ducati’s first title charge in a long time.

The stress was taking its toll on Marquez, after his hairdresser realised that his hair was falling out. The approach had to change, and it did, with the reappearance of '2016 Marc', bagging crucial points and podiums as rivals faltered. Using his sixth sense to judge conditions to perfection in Brno, he headed into the summer break as championship leader, with Dovi in hot pursuit.

The title battle would ebb and flow between the two in the second half of the season, with epic battles in Austria and Japan, going the way of Dovizioso and Ducati. It was clear to see that the advantage Ducati had was being cancelled out by the sheer grit and determination of Marquez on the Honda.

Misano proved to be Marquez’s finest win of the season, beating Danilo Petrucci in the wet and setting the fastest lap of the race on the last lap. I suppose that sums up Marc’s 2017 season; it was a season of moments. He wasn’t always the fastest, but when he needed to strike, he did decisively.

The hammer blow came at Phillip Island, Ducati struggled massively, and Dovizioso limped home to 13th place, with Marquez winning in defiant style and being able to control the points gap with two rounds to go.

But the moment of the season comes at Valencia in the final round as Marc takes the lead and produces arguably the most iconic save of his Grand Prix career. It was labelled the ‘Save of the championship’ and a moment that defined the unbelievable talent he possessed.

Six wins, equal with Dovizioso’s tally, show how hard he had to fight for it, and it showed that whilst he might not have been at his best, he was the man for the big moments.

6. 2016 (39.5/50) - Marquez triumphs in a new MotoGP era 

Alex Whitworth - Journalist

When people nominate Valentino Rossi as the greatest motorcycle racer of all-time, one of the qualifying factors is often the variety of eras in which Rossi won, or the diversity of the fashion of his title seasons.

Rossi dominated seasons on the best bike, won against the odds on unfancied machinery, won on two-strokes, won on four-strokes, with Honda, with Yamaha, with open tyre rules, with control tyres from one supplier, against teammates, against the old guard, against new blood.

Finding new ways to win is often seen as a sign of superiority.

Perhaps there is no better example of Marc Marquez’s ability to adapt to new circumstances than 2016.

While 2016 saw one of Marquez’s most memorable wins, in Germany, there were only five victories in total that season.

On the other hand, however, there were only four races before he clinched the title in Japan that didn’t feature him in the top three: three of those were top-fives, and the other was a 13th that came after crashing at Le Mans while fighting for the podium with Andrea Dovizioso.

That Le Mans crash was his only fall from a race before he clinched the title in Japan, and even then he picked up three points. This reminds that the most important lesson Marquez learnt in 2015 was that it’s often necessary to consider the risks involved with trying to win.

In 2015, he crashed six times (five were his fault), but in 2016, he did so only twice, and only once before the title was secured.
This improvement in consistency was in contrast to the rest of the field who struggled to string together top results for the whole season – a notably unpredictable one thanks to the introduction of unified electronics and the replacement of Bridgestone by Michelin as sole tyre supplier.

These changes not only complicated things for the riders, but also for the factories, and Honda was one manufacturer that struggled initially.

HRC had decided on a radical overhaul of its engine design – from ‘screamer’ to ‘big bang’ V4 – by the middle of that first year of the new technical rules. The new engine could only be introduced in 2017, though, so the riders had to make do with the hard-to-tame ‘screamer’ until the end of the season.

Plus, Honda had used its factory electronics until the end of 2015, while Ducati had adopted the unified Marelli system already in 2014, and Yamaha began using Marelli’s hardware in the 2015 season.

In all, 2016 was a season that highlighted Marquez’s humility; his crash-strewn run to third place in the 2015 standings left him forced to acknowledge the improvements he had to make to reclaim the crown he’d already won twice in 2016.

He implemented those improvements immediately, and there was no better example in 2016 than his run to second behind Jack Miller at the Dutch TT, a second place that Marquez celebrated as a title – in a way, it was.

The timing of this maturation meant that he was able to win even with a bike that was difficult to master and fundamentally unsuitable to the new regulations.

5. 2018 - (40.5/50) Early season pressure gives way to more domination for Marquez 

Peter McLaren - Crash MotoGP Editor

After a final round showdown against Dovizioso and Ducati in 2017, Marquez began 2018 on the back foot with defeat in Qatar and controversy in Argentina following a collision with Valentino Rossi.

But Marquez soon stamped his authority and, from Catalunya onwards, stood on the podium in every race he finished to complete the season a safe 76 points clear of Dovizioso. And he did so while carrying a shoulder injury from a training incident that he kept secret. 

The 2018 season was also the year when Marquez’s advantage over his fellow RC213V riders began to balloon.

While Marquez celebrated nine wins and 14 podiums from 18 rounds, LCR’s Cal Crutchlow was closest with a single victory, three rostrums and seventh in the world championship.

Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa took a best result of fifth on his way to eleventh in the standings, over 200 points behind Marquez.

4. 2013 - (42/50) A new legend is born 

Derry Munikartono - Crash Indonesia Editor

The 2013 and 2017 seasons saw Marquez have an all-season-long battle for the title.

Between them, 2013 stands out. The first title, as a rookie, always impresses.

Moreover, Jorge Lorenzo, his chief rival for 2013, is putting Marc under immense pressure as they are only separated by four points at the finish in Valencia.

It’s easy to forget that year that Marquez was close to winning the title early, but for a strategy gaffe from Honda leading to him being disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix.

To be pushed to the wire by an experienced champion in Lorenzo would be enough to crumble any rookie. But Marquez proved to be a different class.

3. 2014 - (43.5/50) Marquez stretches his legs in sophomore stomp 

Lewis Duncan - Senior Journalist 

History was made in 2013 when, as a rookie to the premier class, Marquez clinched a maiden title. Following that up was never going to be easy, but predicting just he would do so was impossible pre-season.

Marquez won 10 grands prix in a row across the first 10 rounds and would score 13 overall - a record - to ease to a second crown.

The 2014 campaign goes hand in hand with 2019 and 2025 for years where Marquez really did have no equal.

Jorge Lorenzo had a bizarre year of woe on the factory Yamaha, while Valentino Rossi needed another season to get into title-fighting shape. Arm pump for Dani Pedrosa led to him suffering an underwhelming campaign too.

But even without all of that, would they really have been able to stop a Marquez beginning to test the limits of his powers?

2. 2019 - (46/50) Marquez concludes the 2010s seemingly unstoppable 

Peter McLaren

Marc Marquez took his dominance to new heights in 2019, finishing with a staggering 151-point margin over nearest rival Andrea Dovizioso.

Marquez’s 12 victories also dwarfed the two wins apiece by Dovizioso, Maverick Vinales and Alex Rins. The over-exuberance that had cost Marquez dearly in the past was also erased and, COTA aside, he finished first or second in the other 18 races.

Most striking was the gulf between Marquez and the rest of the Honda riders. No other RCV claimed a single win with LCR’s Cal Crutchlow the next best in ninth place, 287 points adrift.  

However, the biggest contrast with within the Repsol Honda garage, where triple champion Jorge Lorenzo - tipped to be Marquez’s toughest team-mate - was instead a shocking 19th overall in what would be his final season.

Almost single-handedly, Marquez delivered Honda the triple crown of riders’, teams’ and constructors’ championships and seemed unstoppable… Until Jerez 2020.

1. 2025 - (49/50) MotoGP’s greatest comeback is complete 

Lewis Duncan

People may argue that Marquez’s most recent MotoGP title being considered his best is recency bias. But there really hasn't been a story quite like this one.

Marquez was at the absolute peak of his powers when he dominated the 2019 world championship and there was no suggestion of that slowing down, even amid a reasonably wobbly winter for Honda at the start of 2020.

With the injury setback, the four major operations and decision to quit the team he did all of his winning with to accept to ride for free at Gresini in 2024 just to see if he could still be fast, Marquez risked so much to get to where he wanted to be in 2025.

And to then go on and win 11 grands prix, 14 sprints - 10 of those 37-point weekends - and wrap up the championship earlier than he ever has, all while on a still relatively new bike to him in the Ducati, required a level arguably greater than what he showed as a rider in 2019.

No rider in MotoGP history has gone as long between titles, with Marquez now the youngest and the oldest in the modern era to be a champion.

It’s for good reason this is being considered one of sports best comebacks.