How Marc Marquez has inadvertently kept Ducati’s Australia MotoGP win hopes alive

After dropping all the way down the order and then immediately rebounding like a yo-yo at the start of last year’s Australian Grand Prix due to his own tear-off getting underneath his rear tyre, there’s little doubt where Marc Marquez would factor in the pecking order at Phillip Island in 2025.

But last year’s Australian Grand Prix winner and the reigning world champion is out, for now indefinitely, due to a complicated right shoulder injury sustained in a lap one clash with Marco Bezzecchi at Mandalika two weeks ago.

That incident continues to hang over Phillip Island as the dust settles on Friday’s two practice sessions. For starters, Marquez’s absence has only intensified the spotlight on team-mate Pecco Bagnaia, and things aren’t looking great there. But, more importantly, the consequence for Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi has changed the complexion of this weekend.

Bezzecchi had the pace to win the Indonesian Grand Prix, even with a bad start. That went unfulfilled when he ran into the back of Marquez’s factory Ducati at Turn 7. But his speed through Mandalika’s fast sweeps already had his rivals looking to Phillip Island as a place where he could stamp some authority on the RS-GP.

Sure enough, he ended Friday with an all-time lap record; he not only bested team-mate Jorge Martin’s old benchmark set on a Ducati, he positively detonated it by 0.754s. And he has the race pace to match.

Yet, Bezzecchi must go into the grand prix facing a double long lap penalty for his collision with Marquez at Mandalika. That will fix to lose him about 2.6 seconds per lap, so long as he serves it correctly. That will certainly drop him right into the thick of a pack that, at present, looks set to resemble a dog fight more than a motorcycle race, given how tight the field is.

Winning isn’t impossible; at Phillip Island, anything seems possible. But his chances will be much slimmer than they would have been without that penalty. And that is good news for Ducati, who does at least have one GP25 runner threatening big things.

Fabio Di Giannantonio has seemingly skipped the same problems Pecco Bagnaia has been suffering on Friday. Because of that, a number of riders have pegged the VR46 rider as the fastest in terms of race pace.

In a straight fight, Di Giannantonio is looking comparable to Bezzecchi. But with the latter effectively removed from the picture by his penalty from the Marquez clash, Di Giannantonio’s grand prix becomes slightly easier, providing he can maintain his one-lap pace in qualifying.

Bagnaia’s baffling 2025 season continues as problems persist

With each passing day, the Japanese Grand Prix looks more and more like the outlier in what has become one of the most baffling seasons ever for a world champion.

Pecco Bagnaia’s miserable Mandalika represented a new low in a championship full of them, as the form that led him to a clean sweep at Motegi simply vanished. What was confusing about this was the fact that, according to Bagnaia, his bike was the same as the one he rode in Japan.

Now, what that bike actually is remains one of the great mysteries. We know that a GP24 ride height device was fitted to Bagnaia’s bike for the Japanese Grand Prix. What we don’t know is specific details about what Ducati did to his bike at the Misano test, because it won’t say, nor why the apparent fix to his problems doesn’t actually seem to have worked.

After Mandalika, where he was almost 30s down in last in the sprint and nowhere in the grand prix before falling, there was at least the factor of the stiffer rear tyre carcass to explain some of the issues. But we’re back to a normal tyre on a relatively normal track surface, and Bagnaia is still floundering.

Ducati confirmed he tried two very different set-ups on his bikes on Friday, but Bagnaia said “theoretically, the two bikes are identical”. In both sessions, on one of those bikes, he cast a dejected figure as he came back to pitlane.

One of them was “usable”, at least, but didn’t give him the same feelings that he had in Japan. This is confusing because, as he says, the bike is supposedly the same. Worryingly, there remains no answer.

“Unfortunately, there’s something that’s the same problem as in Indonesia. And we’re not sure how to fix it,” he noted. “This has happened two or three other times this season, but we’re not really sure where it’s coming from.”

But this is a terrible weekend to be struggling. With Marc Marquez absent, Ducati needs Bagnaia to step up in a big way. While it is happy for satellite riders to represent it on the top step of the podium, it has Bagnaia in factory red for a reason. And, for most of 2025, he hasn’t done the job expected of him.

Inside the Ducati garage, it is known that Bagnaia’s struggles have worn thin because of how much work has been done to help him with little results. And his cause isn’t being helped by Di Giannantonio outstripping him over one lap and on race pace on the same GP25.

Di Giannantonio has gone well at Phillip Island in the past, riding a Gresini-run GP22 to a maiden podium in 2023. When the GP25 is in the window to perform for him, Di Giannantonio has shown good speed. He was over 0.2s quicker than Bagnaia on the timesheet at the end of Practice, while his race pace was hugely encouraging.

On the face of it, Bagnaia appears quicker in that table. But Bagnaia only completed four representative laps. Di Giannantonio completed nine and put 15 laps in total on a soft rear, hinting at strong longevity.

Rightfully, Di Giannantonio was confident of where he currently stood after Practice. However, he remained cautious owing to his prior problems with the GP25 being sensitive to change for him.

“It’s only Friday, for sure,” he added.“But today we rode really well, that’s the truth. We were fast. With used tyres, I was fast. So, let’s see. Let’s bring this energy for tomorrow. It’s only Friday, so feet on the ground. But it’s a great start from DiGia’s team. Definitely a fear [of form reversing], but feet on the ground. Great Friday, but feet on the ground and let’s work for tomorrow.”

Elsewhere in the Ducati stable, there were contrasting fortunes. Franco Morbidelli was well down the order in 17th on his VR46-run GP24. At Gresini, Alex Marquez was inside the top five and in the ballpark on pace, while Indonesian Grand Prix-winning team-mate and Phillip Island specialist Fermin Aldeguer slid out of the Q2 places in 11th.

Bezzecchi down but not out at Phillip Island?

The unfortunate thing for Aprilia is that a fit Jorge Martin may well have had something to say this weekend at Phillip Island. A good circuit for the 2024 champion in recent times, he could have helped greatly cover over Bezzecchi’s penalty.

Aprilia has options, still, for a good result. Raul Fernandez’s Mandalika form carried over into Friday at Phillip Island, as he put his Trackhouse Aprilia second overall. Not doing any used soft tyre running, it remains to be seen just where he fits into the race running. If Mandalika is anything to go by, it’s just outside the podium battle.

There is an argument to be made that what we’ve seen from Bezzecchi on Friday isn’t even the full picture. While not seriously injured in the crash with Marc Marquez, he is struggling more with pain in his back than he expected.

Even with that, he smashed the lap record in Practice and was 0.291s clear of the field. Over a 13-lap representative run on the soft rear (which had 19 laps on it by the time he was done), he averaged 1m28.085s in race pace. While there are quite a few who are close, really, his nearest rival was Di Giannantonio on 1m28.088s across nine laps.

Fixing to lose just over five seconds in total from his two long lap penalties in the grand prix, his Sunday has become needlessly more complicated. As already mentioned, nothing can be ruled out at Phillip Island. But with a sprint win very likely on another weekend where a double is realistic, Aprilia can’t help but be frustrated.

Phillip Island full of opportunities for some

As it stands, from a pure pace perspective, Marco Bezzecchi (carrying a penalty) and Fabio Di Giannantonio have a slight advantage. But there is a big battle shaping up for the podium.

KTM didn’t factor at the sharp end at the end of Friday’s time attacks, but Pedro Acosta is in solid shape following his Indonesia podium. He complained of a lack of stability, which somewhat explains his crash at Turn 4 halfway through Practice.

Testing what appeared to be a new swingarm, Acosta’s race pace - albeit over a reasonably short six laps - averaged at 1m28.007s. More encouragingly, he was able to still do 1m27s with 14 laps on the soft rear.

Tyre life has been a problem for the KTM this year. He managed to negate it at Mandalika through his sheer skill. But Phillip Island is always a punishing venue on rubber and that might ultimately prove the downfall of KTM’s podium hopes come Sunday.

More was expected of Honda following its consistent upturn in the second half of the season. At present, however, only one RC213V is in Q2. That was Luca Marini, in seventh, whose race pace also looked solid.

But Honda will need to make some considerable gains as it faces some stiff opposition from Japanese rivals Yamaha. In theory, Phillip Island should suit the M1 with its strong front end, but rear grip has continued to be something that has felled Yamaha riders’ hopes this season.

Over a single lap, it remained strong. Fabio Quartararo was fourth, while team-mate Alex Rins was sixth, continuing his strong showing from Indonesia. But it was the bike’s race pace that “exceeded expectations”, according to 2021 world champion Quartararo. Over 11 laps on a soft rear, Quartararo averaged 1m28.175s. That is pace to think about a podium charge, though much of that will hinge on qualifying.