The 17th round of the 2025 MotoGP World Championship concludes on Sunday with the 24-lap Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi.
Marc Marquez begins Sunday's race facing his first match point in the 2025 title chase, following a second-place finish in Saturday's sprint as sole championship rival Alex Marquez failed to score in 10th.
This has given the factory Ducati rider - who will start from third - a favourable set of permutations to secure his seventh MotoGP world title on Sunday.
Marc Marquez will win the championship today if:
Alex Marquez starts from eighth, while Pecco Bagnaia will be looking to grab his first grand prix win of the season since Austin from pole position following a first sprint triumph of the campaign on Saturday.
Aprilia's Jorge Martin will not start due to a shoulder injury from a crash on Saturday, while home hero Ai Ogura has withdrawn due to ongoing pain in his hand from an incident at the San Marino Grand Prix.
Without Alex Marquez convincing him, Marc Marquez may never have taken the decision to leave Honda for Gresini Ducati at the end of 2023. And as a result, he wouldn't have been world champion again.
Marc Marquez has spoken much about what he went through since 2020, but Alex Marquez says the world only truly knows "10%" of the story.
Marc Marquez and Ducati have a long history in MotoGP pre-dating his joining the brand.
Having seen him win the 2025 title, Ducati general manager Gigi Dall'Igna says he now understands why he was so hard to beat in the past ⬇️
Marc Marquez said this weekend that joining Ducati has been like his "second life". Winning the championship in Japan comes two years on from his final podium with Honda, days before he quit to join Gresini in a bid to restart his career.
Take a read of this exclusive interview from 2023 with the new seven-time world champion conducted by Crash MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren ⬇️
Marc Marquez has been candid about his struggles since his serious arm injury in 2020.
Reflecting on the last few years in how he has grown as a person after winning the 2025 world title, he admits six years ago in 2019 he "didn't know suffering".
It was a perfect day for Ducati in Japan, but Pecco Bagnaia's smoking GP25 left Marc Marquez "afraid" of crashing when within reach of the 2025 title.
No matter how hard is the hill 💪🔴
— Ducati Corse (@ducaticorse) September 28, 2025
Bravo, @PeccoBagnaia ❤️
P1 at #JapaneseGP 🏆🇯🇵#ForzaDucati#DucatiLenovoTeampic.twitter.com/6N593LQ9fr
Marc Marquez’s seventh MotoGP world title and ninth in total draws him level with Valentino Rossi, reigniting the GOAT debate between the two bitter rivals. But how Marquez bounced back from five years of hell, risked his career, and came out more dominant than ever has ended the debate for good…
Marc Marquez's 2025 world title is the culmination of a long and winding road back from injury for the 32-year-old, with the direct path to glory beginning at the Japanese Grand Prix two years ago.
Bagnaia tells the world feed before the podium:
"First of all I don't want to take out any spotlight from Marc that just arrived and he deserves any spoptlight today. But in any case, happy.
"I'm just a little shame that it just arrived now, but happy for the weekend, happy for the performance, and I hope that from now on I will continue in this way because like this I can fight."
Race podium coming up now. Joan Mir tells the world feed broadcast:
"A long time without this feeling. You can't believe how happy I am. I think that this arrived in the perfect moment for us.
"We fought a lot for this. I can't believe it.
"Everything is worth it for this moment, so thank you so much to the team for all the work that they've been doing, for all the effort that they made to give me a competitive bike, and also to all the effort they made to help myself in the difficult moments.
"It's unbelievable. I'm so happy, so hopefully we can continue like this, that is the most difficult thing. But once we achieved one podium, now we already make it so now we just have to repeat it."
Marc Marquez says he's "at peace" after winning his ninth title.
He tells the world feed broadcast on the championship podium: "It's impossible even to speak. I don't want to remember what I put away, I just want to enjoy the moment, but it's true that it was difficult.
"It was super-difficult. But now I'm at peace with myself. So, I did a big mistake for my career to come back to early and then I fight, fight, fight. I'm at peace."
Honestly unsure if they're actually going to do a race podium here. Bagnaia's and Mir's bikes are both in parc ferme along with top independent Morbidelli's, so presumably it's happening at some point.
Marquez now on a podium on the pit straight putting his name on the refreshed Tower of Champions that was unveiled in Misano a couple of weeks ago.
Slightly bizarre, if understandable, post-race with almost no recognition of the race that just happened in the past 20 minutes.
Ducati Lenovo Team Manager Davide Tardozzi says the combination of Marquez's title and Bagnaia's victory will be something that stays with him "forever".
"It's the perfect day to win the championship here in Japan and having Pecco [Bagnaia] back like he did yesterday and today is something amazing," he told the MotoGP world feed broadcast.
"It's something that we can't even dream and I think it's something that we will keep in the heart and in the mind forever."
Pecco Bagnaia takes the chequered flag for his second victory of the season.
But Marc Marquez is the 2025 MotoGP world champion!
Five years on from a serious arm injury, Marquez has become a seven-time MotoGP world champion and a nine-time world champion overall.
One lap to go!
Still more smoke from Bagnaia's bike.
