Marquez brothers dominate opening race of MotoGP 2025

Six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez dominated on his first start in the Ducati factory red, leading lights-to-flag in the sprint race of the Thailand Grand Prix 2025 season opener.

A heavy favourite going into the weekend, Marquez kept the lead off pole and controlled the race from there, heading a Ducati 1-2-3.

His team-mate Pecco Bagnaia lunged down the inside of Marquez's brother Alex at the start, but the latter got the position back on corner exit and was never meaningfully threatened after that.

He stayed within a second of his brother during the first half of the 13-lapper, ultimately dropping a bit further back to finish 1.185s back as Marc celebrated over the line.

Leading finishers

1 M Marquez
2 A Marquez
3 Bagnaia
4 Ogura
5 Morbidelli
Full results at bottom of page

Instead of mounting a challenge for the top two, Bagnaia actually came under pressure from Trackhouse Aprilia rookie Ai Ogura - who swept around the outside of Franco Morbidelli and Jack Miller at Turn 1 to consolidate fourth.

Bagnaia ultimately shook off Ogura, who settled for fourth, but he had nothing to offer for the leading duo.

VR46 rider Morbidelli briefly dropped behind Miller but soon reclaimed the position before riding a relatively lonely race to fifth.

Miller seemed in a strong position to follow him home in sixth then crashed out just as he looked to be matching Yamaha benchmark Fabio Quartararo for pace.

Quartararo, who had inherited sixth, was overtaken by KTM's Pedro Acosta right afterwards, Acosta's race conditioned by him getting stuck behind team-mate Brad Binder in the early going.

Binder, capitalising on a superb start from 14th, brought the bike home in eighth, while Joan Mir completed the points-scoring top nine for Honda.

It was a better ride from Mir than that suggests, though, as he was compromised at the start by having to take avoiding action when Aprilia's Marco Bezzecchi went nearly sideways off the line and fell to almost last place.

Bezzecchi - arguably a standout of the pre-season - could himself only recover to 12th.

The only other retirement besides Miller was injured VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, who looked to be charging his way into the points but then had to park up - which he said after the race was due to heat.

Results

1 Marc Marquez (Ducati)
2 Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati)
3 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati)
4 Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia)
5 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati)
6 Pedro Acosta (KTM)
7 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha)
8 Brad Binder (KTM)
9 Joan Mir (Honda)
10 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda)
11 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia)
12 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia)
13 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati)
14 Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM)
15 Luca Marini (Honda)
16 Miguel Oliveira (Pramac Yamaha)
17 Alex Rins (Yamaha)
18 Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM)
19 Somkiat Chantra (LCR Honda)
20 Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia)
DNF Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati)
DNF Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha)