The qualifying gap: What the BMW Award reveals about MotoGP 2025
Marc Marquez ruled both the MotoGP standings and BMW Best Qualifier award in 2025, but Fabio Quartararo was arguably the star of Saturday mornings.
The importance of qualifying in MotoGP is well known, with VR46 team principal Pablo Nieto recently telling Crash.net that “50% of the weekend is on Friday” when the top ten places for direct Q2 access are decided.
So who excelled on Saturday mornings in 2025 relative to their race results, and whose season was compromised by starting deep on the grid?
The table below compares the BMW Best Qualifier standings - where points are awarded for qualifying in the same format as a grand prix (25 points for pole, down to one point for 15th) - with each rider’s world championship position.
We’ve also listed each rider’s best and worst qualifying, average grid position across the 22 rounds (or however many qualifying sessions they took part in), as well as the difference between their qualifying ranking and championship result:
2025 BMW Award vs MotoGP World Championship position | |||||||
BMW Pos. | Rider | BMW points | Best Q. | Worst Q. | Average Q. | W.C. Pos. | Diff. (BMW vs. W.C.) |
1 | Marc Marquez | 351 | Pole | 9th | 2.5 | 1 | = |
2 | Alex Marquez | 343 | Pole | 11th | 3.9 | 2 | = |
3 | Fabio Quartararo | 310 | Pole | 16th | 5.1 | 9 | +6 |
4 | Francesco Bagnaia | 265 | Pole | 21st | 6.9 | 5 | +1 |
5 | Marco Bezzecchi | 264 | Pole | 20th | 7.2 | 3 | -2 |
6 | Pedro Acosta | 206 | 2nd | 14th | 7 | 4 | -2 |
7 | Franco Morbidelli | 198 | 3rd | 17th | 7.1 | 7 | = |
8 | Fabio Di Giannantonio | 178 | 2nd | 15th | 8.6 | 6 | -2 |
9 | Fermin Aldeguer | 152 | 2nd | 18th | 9.6 | 8 | -1 |
10 | Johann Zarco | 127 | 2nd | 18th | 11 | 12 | +2 |
11 | Joan Mir | 116 | 2nd | 21st | 11.5 | 15 | +4 |
12 | Jack Miller | 109 | 3rd | 20th | 11.7 | 17 | +5 |
13 | Raul Fernandez | 98 | 3rd | 19th | 12 | 10 | -3 |
14 | Luca Marini | 84 | 6th | 16th | 11.8 | 13 | -1 |
15 | Maverick Vinales | 66 | 5th | 23rd | 14.2 | 18 | +3 |
16 | Brad Binder | 55 | 6th | 19th | 14.3 | 11 | -5 |
17 | Alex Rins | 53 | 4th | 23rd | 15.2 | 19 | 2 |
18 | Ai Ogura | 40 | 5th | 21st | 15.7 | 16 | -2 |
19 | Enea Bastianini | 37 | 4th | 21st | 16.3 | 14 | -5 |
20 | Miguel Oliveira | 15 | 10th | 20th | 16.4 | 20 | = |
21 | Jorge Martin | 13 | 11th | 18th | 15 | 21 | = |
Unsurprisingly, the top two in the championship - Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez - were just as dominant in qualifying as they were in races, underlining the advantage of controlling weekends from the front.
Despite missing the final four rounds, Marc held on to the BMW prize by eight points over Alex, compared to a final world championship advantage of 78 points.
Behind directly the Ducati duo, the standout anomaly is Fabio Quartararo, arguably the star of Saturday mornings.
Despite finishing only ninth in the world championship, the Yamaha rider ranked third in the BMW Award, while his five pole positions matched Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi and were bettered only by the eight for Marc Marquez.
However, as Pramac’s Jack Miller has explained, the Inline Yamaha M1 was vulnerable in race conditions, leaving Quartararo exposed once the lights went out.
Miller’s own season followed a similar pattern: His qualifying ranking was five places higher than his final championship position.
At the other end of the spectrum, KTM riders Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini produced the biggest race recoveries relative to their qualifying performances.
Binder was 16th in the BMW award and 11th overall in the world championship. Tech3’s Bastianini was 19th in the qualifying ranking, and 14th in the official MotoGP standings.
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