The biggest disappointment of early 2025 MotoGP races highlighted

The first five races of the 2025 MotoGP season have delivered plenty of drama, but also on big disappointment.

All expectations in the pre-season were for Ducati’s factory team duo Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia to be at each other’s throats from the first round in what was shaping up to be a hard-fought title battle.

But so far, Marquez has won three of the first five GPs and all five sprints, while Bagnaia has just one win to his credit.

After the Spanish Grand Prix, Bagnaia is 20 points off the championship lead and 19 points behind Marc Marquez after finishing third behind Fabio Quartararo and race winner Alex Marquez - who is top of the standings.

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Bagnaia has complained about several issues hindering his results on the 2025 Ducati, which he is looking to solve quickly.

In the latest Crash MotoGP Podcast, Crash Social Media Manager and podcast host Jordan Moreland believes Bagnaia needed to be the one to pick up the pieces when Marc Marquez crashed early in the race given his past record at Jerez.

“It’s his best ever start to a MotoGP season, but he’s not happy and he’s saying that the feeling of the bike is different compared to the GP24,” he said.

“He said he can see Alex Marquez is riding the GP24 the way he did at Jerez last year, being able to take certain corners a certain way and he was like ‘why am I not able to do that this year’.

“I don’t think it’s good enough, to be honest. I know that he’s the double world champion and yes, he’s only 20 points off Alex.

“Surely he has to be the one picking up the pieces? He did in COTA, granted, but at a track where he’s won the last three grands prix he just looked like he wasn’t going to be on the podium this week.

“You can tell he’s not happy with that at all.”

Pecco Bagnaia not living up to his potential biggest frustration of 2025 season

Crash Senior Journalist Lewis Duncan believes Bagnaia isn’t doing the job he should be, and is frustrated by the Ducati rider’s start to the season because of just how good the double world champion has shown to be in recent years.

“There comes a point where you just need to own up and say ‘look, I’m not doing a good enough job here, I need ride around these problems’,” Duncan said.

“The more you hide behind excuses the weaker it will make you as a competitor.

“Pecco Bagnaia fans have to accept right now that your guys isn’t riding like the great double world champion that we know he is, that brilliant, fast Ducati rider that we know he is.

“He is not doing what he should be, and that is really disappointing because we have such high hopes for him this year.

“He showed he can get the muscles out, he can really fight [Marc Marquez] and we want to see that.

“And it’s really frustrating because we know what Pecco can do versus Marc.

“When Pecco’s on his game, when Marc’s on his game that will be brilliant because we know Pecco is more than up for the challenge.”