From last chance to title glory: Timeline of Marc Marquez’s 2025 MotoGP championship

Marc Marquez has become a nine-time grand prix world champion and seven-time MotoGP title winner at the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix.

The factory Ducati rider has been superior throughout the current campaign, winning … grands prix and … sprints to secure his first world title since 2019 with five rounds to spare.

Pre-season predictions certainly favoured Marc Marquez, but few could have predicted the domination he has displayed on the GP25.

However, to get to this point Marquez had to make one of the hardest decisions of his career, rebuild his confidence, cause a rider market bombshell that disrupted Ducati’s rider structure and adapt around early-season errors to get to his ninth world title.

4 October 2023 - Marquez makes the biggest decision of his career

Just days after climbing onto the podium in a wet Japanese Grand Prix, Marc Marquez announced to the world that he would be leaving Honda with a year left on his factory deal.

Marquez’s career had been derailed by a violent crash at the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix, where he badly broke his right arm.

Four major operations would follow before he was able to get back to full fitness. Though, from the off in 2023, his level of commitment to getting his body back to where it needed to be was not matched by Honda's bike development.

Marquez found himself crashing repeatedly as he pushed an uncompetitive Honda beyond its limits, with a miserable German Grand Prix weekend - in which he fell five times - marking the beginning of the end for his partnership with HRC.

A test at Misano of the 2024 bike as rumours swirled of a shock switch to Gresini failed to convince him. Needing to understand if he can be competitive again or face the real prospect of retirement, Marquez turned his back on a factory Honda deal and signed to Gresini to ride a year-old Ducati for no salary.

Ending a partnership that had yielded six world titles and 59 grand prix wins was not easy for Marquez. But it would ultimately prove to be the most important decision of his career…

28 November 2023 - Marquez makes Ducati test debut and gets his smile back

The 2023 MotoGP title battle between Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin went down to the Valencia finale. But the anticipation of the Tuesday test day far outweighed any of that hype.

On a chilly November morning at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, Marquez made his debut on the Gresini Ducati. After his first run on the bike, he flashed a smile to crew chief Frankie Carchedi that ultimately set the tone for the next two years.

Ending the day fourth fastest, Marquez showed glimpsed of his old self again.

28 April 2024 - Victory drought almost ends in frantic Bagnaia battle

Marquez had always been cautious to say he would fight for the title in 2024. After all, the 2024 season for him was all about rediscovering his joy for racing.

But already in the first rounds of the campaign he was fighting at the front. He scored a sprint podium in Portugal and another in America a day before crashing out of the lead of the grand prix. He was on course for a win on Saturday at the Spanish Grand Prix when he fell again in a crash-filled sprint at Jerez.

On Sunday he locked horns with factory Ducati rival Pecco Bagnaia for victory and narrowly came off second-best. Still, he climbed onto a grand prix podium for the first time since Japan 2023 and had proved an important point: winning again was only a matter of time.

3 June 2024 - Marquez triggers rider market bombshell

Ducati found itself in the summer of 2024 with an embarrassment of riches. Pecco Bagnaia was a double world champion already, Jorge Martin led the standings and would eventually win the 2024 title, while Marquez was proving rapid on the GP23.

Really, Ducati was looking at having its cake and eating it in 2025 by placing Martin at the factory team alongside Bagnaia and promoting Marquez to a works bike at Pramac. Except, Marquez publicly shut this down on the Thursday ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

Coming to Ducati’s home race, Ducati had made its decision. But Marquez said, for him, he either got a works bike at Gresini (not an option for Ducati) or he goes to the works team, otherwise he takes up an offer elsewhere.

Ducati management panicked and made a U-turn on its decision to promote Martin. So, on the Monday after the Italian Grand Prix, Martin signed for Aprilia, paving the way for Marquez to get what he wanted.

The move showed just how much power Marquez still held in the paddock, with Ducati losing Martin as a rider and Pramac as a satellite squad as a direct result. And that was despite Marquez having not actually won yet on a Ducati.

1 September 2024 - Marquez ends 1000-day wait for glory

The 2024 Aragon weekend was a perfect storm for Marquez. A newly resurfaced circuit didn’t offer much grip across the event, which played into Marquez’s hands perfectly alongside the anticlockwise layout of the venue.

He eased to pole and the sprint win, before dominating the grand prix to stand on the top step for the first time on a Sunday since the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix 1043 days prior.

It was, in many ways, the end of the long road that began with his crash at Jerez in 2020 and the beginning of a new chapter - one that would ultimately lead him down the line to world championship glory.

19 November 2024 - The first test in red

Though not quite as exciting as his first test on the Ducati in November 2023, the 2024 test day at Barcelona was nevertheless an important moment in Marquez’s 2025 title story.

It marked his first ride in factory red and his first time sample Ducati’s works machinery. He finished the day - in which he tried the GP24 and the GP25 prototype - fourth fastest behind team-mate Pecco Bagnaia.

Marquez said at the time his first impressions of the bike and the team were good, while later acknowledging that he understood then what was possible in 2025.

2 March 2025 - Marquez’s toying with rivals in Thailand a hint at domination to come

The opening round of the 2025 campaign in Thailand came on the backdrop of Ducati having a less than ideal pre-season testing phase. The 2025 engine was shelved in favour of an updated 2024 version as it was too risky to use the former ahead of a two-year development freeze.

There were suggestions that Ducati was about to face an uphill battle. But those fears were put to bed by Marquez. He qualified on pole, won the sprint and took top spot in the grand prix despite having to drop behind Gresini’s Alex Marquez to boost his tyre pressures or face a penalty.

This ultimately masked just how much pace Marc Marquez actually had, though the way he streaked clear by almost 1.8s in the final few laps when back in the lead served as a warning.

He would do the double again next time out in Argentina and was on course for a third in America when he crashed out of the lead while being too aggressive on a damp kerb. He would cede the lead in the standings to Alex Marquez by a point, but that wouldn’t last…

13 April 2025 - Marquez triumphant at a weak circuit

Marc Marquez bounced back from his error in America with an emphatic display at the Qatar Grand Prix two weeks later.

A circuit he dubbed as one of his weakest, having only won at Lusail once previously in his MotoGP career, an opportunity looked to be provided to his rivals to capitalise on. But Marquez took pole, won the sprint and the grand prix by 4.5s to re-establish his championship lead.

He would lose it again in Spain after crashing out of the podium places early on, but again only dropping behind Alex Marquez - who won, having slumped to sixth in Qatar - by a point.

At the following French Grand Prix, he got back to winning aways in the sprint before taking a cautious second as his rivals struggled in wet conditions to head the standings again.

25 May 2025 - A dodged bullet prompts an important rethink

After the French Grand Prix, Marquez was 22 points clear in the standings. But for all of the good he had done in the early races, those mistakes at COTA and Jerez were still very much haunting him.

The British Grand Prix at Silverstone represented another weak track, with its fast right-hand layout working against him nowadays in the wake of his serious arm injury.

He was dealt his first sprint defeat of the season by Alex Marquez on the Saturday. On Sunday, he was lucky that a red flag was flown on lap one just seconds after he’d fallen out of the lead.

The factory Ducati rider was able to take the restart and would go on to finish third, as Alex Marquez finished fifth and Pecco Bagnaia crashed out. In what is so far the only weekend this year that he hasn’t won at least one race, he emerged from Silverstone with his championship lead standing at 24 points.

But more importantly, he admitted he needed to change his approach to iron out the errors that had plagued him to this point on Sundays.

29 June 2025 - Not the fastest at Assen, but still winning

He put those changes to his approach into action at the Aragon Grand Prix, once again doing the double, before repeating this at the Italian Grand Prix.

Coming to the Dutch Grand Prix, he was beginning to stretch his legs in the standings. Now 40 points clear of Alex Marquez, the challenge for his rivals was looking tougher. But a bruising Friday at Assen threatened once more to turn things on their head.

He qualified off the front row for the second time, having done so at Silverstone, but came through to win the sprint. That said, he wasn’t confident of being able to replicate this in the grand prix as he didn’t feel like he had the pace, particularly of Silverstone winner Marco Bezzecchi.

But he kept the Aprilia rider at bay on the Sunday to complete his third double in succession while Alex Marquez crashed and broke a finger in his hand.

This blew open the championship gap, with Alex Marquez dropping 68 points behind his older brother and carrying injury into the German Grand Prix.

24 August 2025 - Seventh heaven for Marquez as rivals keep fumbling

Marquez’s relentless charge continued through Germany, Czechia and Austria, as he tallied up three more doubles to bring his total to six in succession and nine for the season.

Meanwhile, nearest rival Alex Marquez was committing big mistakes at Brno, while Pecco Bagnaia’s form was only getting worse. Both of these things continued at Balaton Park, with Marquez easing to 10th double of the season.

This elevated him 175 points clear in the standings and had put into focus the prospect of him being able to win the championship as early as the San Marino Grand Prix.

14 September 2025 - Misano win puts one hand on the 2025 trophy

The Misano match point was taken from him at the Catalan Grand Prix by Alex Marquez, who bounced back from a crash while leading the sprint to beat Marc Marquez in a head-to-head battle on Sunday.

Ultimately, it was delaying the inevitable, but for the first time since the British Grand Prix Marc Marquez was pushed into playing it safe.

That said, he threw caution to the win on Saturday at the San Marino Grand Prix to try to win the sprint ahead of Marco Bezzecchi and crashed from the lead. It was a needless mistake given the position he was in, but keeping up the pressure has been Marquez’s preferred method of operation in 2025.

That continued into Sunday’s grand prix as he engaged in a tense battle with Bezzecchi again. This time, he came out on top to score his 11th grand prix win of the season and move 182 points clear in the standings.

This gave him his first match point for the title in Japan, while also eliminating all but Alex Marquez from championship contention after 16 rounds of the 22-round calendar.

28 September 2025 - The circle is complete

Six years on from his last world championship, Marquez completed one of sport's greatest comebacks at the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix. With a second in both the sprint and the grand prix, he sealed the deal to become a seven-time world champion in the premier class.