2025 Valencia MotoGP: Alex Marquez beats Pedro Acosta in sprint finale
Alex Marquez takes his third sprint win of 2025 in Valencia finale
Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez took a start-to-finish victory in the final sprint of the 2025 MotoGP season at the Valencia Grand Prix ahead of Pedro Acosta.
Coming into Saturday’s 13-lap sprint at Ricardo Tormo, both Alex Marquez and Gresini Racing were playing down their chances, as they felt Marco Bezzecchi and Pedro Acosta had more speed.
But Marquez took the lead from second on the grid at the first corner and quickly took control of proceedings to take the chequered flag 1.149s clear of the field.
He beat KTM’s Acosta, who went from fifth to second in the opening sequence of corners at the start, but could do nothing to rein in Marquez.
The podium was completed by VR46 Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, who was miles clear of the next-best GP25, which was Pecco Bagnaia in 14th.
Polesitter Marco Bezzecchi struggled from the off in the sprint, as his late choice of soft front tyre appeared to backfire, with the Italian only fifth.
However, he has officially secured third in the standings, marking a first for an Aprilia rider in MotoGP.
Alex Marquez nailed his launch off the line from second to snatch the lead at the start of the 13-lap sprint, as Acosta carved through on Bezzecchi at Turn 2.
Bezzecchi got beaten up through the next few corners, dropping to sixth, as Trackhouse Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez moved into third.
Marquez and Acosta quickly dropped Fernandez, who was almost a second adrift at the start of the fourth lap.
Two laps later, Marquez had moved over a second clear of Acosta, as he capitalised on a mistake made by the KTM rider at Turn 8 the tour before.
Marquez swelled his lead to over 1.5s at one stage, before controlling his pace to the chequered flag, allowing Acosta to close to 1.149s adrift.
Di Giannantonio engaged in a tight battle with Fernandez on lap 11 to claim the final podium spot, with the VR46 rider getting the move done at Turn 6.
Fernandez dropped 0.882s behind at the chequered flag in fourth, while Bezzecchi was a frustrated fifth.
Franco Morbidelli got through on Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo late on for sixth on the sister VR46 Ducati, while KTM’s Brad Binder and Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura took the final points.
Pramac Yamaha’s Jack Miller was handed a three-place drop penalty for a collision with Fermin Aldeguer on lap three.
This was then converted to a long lap after Miller ignored these stewards’ instructions, which dropped him out of the points to 12th.
Pecco Bagnaia struggled on the factory team Ducati from 16th on the grid, with the Italian 14th at the chequered flag and dropping to fifth in the standings.
Jorge Martin got as high as 11th on his return on the factory Aprilia, but dropped to last after running off at Turn 8 at mid-distance.
Honda duo Joan Mir and Luca Marini were early fallers after the former lost the front-end of his bike braking for Turn 2 into the side of his team-mate.
