“Remember your place like the rest of them, and wait for Goku.”
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Dre’s Race Review, and I’ve been waiting for this one for a while. After five years away due to new ownership, a track resurfacing and a rejuvenated facility, MotoGP is finally back in Czechia and the fantastic Brno circuit was front and center. Did it produce an excellent race? No, but I’m happier so who cares?
We’ve got some shit to break down here, including yet more Marquez dominance, a wacky Sprint race where the tyre pressure rules became the focal point yet again, and a banner day for Aprilia as the Champion returned at last. Let’s get into it.
Under Pressure (Again)
It was always going to be a difficult weekend. Brno is a track that hasn’t been raced on by MotoGP in five years. The bikes were very different then, and amazingly, some riders like Pedro Acosta and Fermin Aldeguer are so young, they weren’t even in the paddock when Brno was last there. The field even lost a full day’s running due to torrential rain. Add in a newly resurfaced track1 and you had a hunch tyre pressures might keep into the picture… and it did.
Marc Marquez took the early lead ahead of teammate Pecco Bagnaia’s first pole position of 2025. But a couple of strange things happened. Bagnaia dropped back intentionally because his dashboard said he was about to fall foul of the tyre pressure regulations – Where you have to spend 30% of the Sprint within it. But he did it on the wrong part of the track and dropped back to fifth place. A couple of laps later, Marc Marquez did the same, dropping back behind new leader Pedro Acosta, as he had the warning light on his dashboard and needed to drop back.
Ala Thailand, Marquez sat behind Acosta until the penultimate lap, hit Acosta coming out of Sector 2’s chicane, and pulled away to victory – His 11th Sprint victory of the season2.
Or did he? Marquez was investigated for breaching tyre pressures, but Marc looked completely unphased. Why? Because Dorna had accidentally entered the wrong figures into their calculations. All riders cleared, no investigation necessary. Marc played it perfectly again, just like he did in Thailand.
But it once again exposes the farcical nature of said rule and the mess it’s been to get to this point. For the second time this season, a rider has had to give up the lead of the race intentionally so he can inflate his tyres to a “safe point”. On any level, it looks incredibly stupid.
Since Mat Oxley exposed what the teams were doing back in 2022, every major other entity in the sport has had blood on its hands for leading us down this road. The teams were having handshake agreements with Michelin to run their tyres with pressures that were so low they’d fail an MOT, sometimes as low as 14psi, and not report it so the regulators and keep it all under wraps. This isn’t totally on Michelin, they were caught cold by a sport that allowed ride-height devices and ground-effect aero to raise the amount of downforce these front tyres were being exposed to unprecedented levels.
More on them on a bit, but Dorna then took a year and a half to figure out how to regulate the issue. 2023 was silly in its own right, allowing a “warning” before punishment was given, meaning a regulation turned into a tactical “joker” that could be played when necessary down the stretch. Only on the day before the 2024 season started did we get the 8/16 time penalty rule as a settlement because the teams kicked up a stink about potential disqualifications – In exchange, you had to be legal for 60% of a race rather than 50.
Despite all that, Michelin had ample opportunity to develop a new tyre to compensate for the sporting climate it’s in. It postponed a new front tyre from 2024 into 2025, and then we found out last month that it’s been scrapped entirely because not enough riders expressed their support and Michelin didn’t get enough testing mileage because the teams were focused elsewhere.
It’s a joke and it says to me that Michelin aren’t fit for purpose as a supplier if they don’t want to address a clear and obvious issue, especially when “Safety” is the reason given for these changes in the first place.
MotoGP needs to take a long look in the mirror as we head towards 2027 and its new regulations, and think about what kind of product it wants to produce. Calling it “spicy” on social media isn’t got to alleviate the justified anger into what was an awful spectacle. The product has deteriorated as a direct result of the sport’s development and wer should be championing measures for it to be kerbed, not waiting for a warning light to hit the dashboard.
Guess Who Won?
Look, there’s only so many times I can dress this up – Marc Marquez won in Brno in controlled, brilliant fashion once again. He made this look easy. After a crash in qualifying forced him into a mere second on the grid, he had to deal with Marco Bezzecchi being the main threat again. But Marquez waited, bode his time, and then attacked when he could tell the best of the medium compound tyres were gone. One block pass later and he’s in front and like he’s done so many times, he inches out a gap, a bit at a time. Four tenths, five tenths, a second, peaking at around 2.5. He never looked like he was going to lose.
When Bez made one final push with about 8 laps to go, Marc pushed back and dipped into the 1:53’s, just to feel something. No literally, he admitted in the presser afterwards that he did purely to keep his concentration, throwing back to the Austin weekend when he threw away a sitter. It’s becoming harder and harder to hide the fact that in terms of ability, Marc Marquez has the field on toast. This was his eighth victory of 2025, eighth double victory of the season (A record he’s already extended), and his 70th in the top flight. And with Alex Marquez having a dreadful start on Saturday and crashing on Sunday, Marc has a 120 point lead with 10 races left. It’s over, we’re done. Pack it up.
And what makes this so special to me? Saturday marked the five-year anniversary of Marquez’s arm injury in Jerez. The injury that threatened to derail Marc’s career through stubbornness, poor decision-making and an unwavering attitude, a greed to win. I’d have never guessed five years later, that not only Marc would be back on top of the Championship, but looking as dominant as he ever has on two wheels. We’re witnessing one of sport’s great comebacks.
And you don’t need an abacus to work that one out.
The Lightning Round
Also makes Marc the first Ducati rider to win five in a row. Oh, and he’s averaging a rounded up 32 points per weekend. Jorge Martin won the Championship on 24 last year. *gulps*
Banner day for Aprilia all told. Marco Bezzecchi is back to something near his best with the Aprilia. Given the Germany crash, it really should have been his third runner-up berth in a row. But he’s now fourth in the Championship and riding as well as his prime VR46 days at the moment. Add Jorge Martin finishing 7th in his first race back and being on the pace immediately, and Raul Fernandez matching his career-high in 5th as top independent and yeah, thumbs up all-round in the Aprilia camp3.
Missing: Fabio Di Giannantonio. If found, return to Bologna. Also, Joan Mir’s been collected at three races in a row. If that man didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck.
KTM looked as good as they have all season too, Pedro Acosta got them their first podium of the season, and Pedro beat Bagnaia straight up. Pedro seems to have dropped his funk of moaning at the team and he’s gotten his head down, and it seems to be paying dividends. Good to see, good for the sport.
Now TNT Sports do me a favour – Don’t tell Moto2 race winner Joe Roberts there’s a Trackhouse seat potentially on the table this time! Also, great to see the improvement in Barry Baltus, the first win is coming for sure.
Jose Antonio Rueda – David Alonso 2.0?
The Verdict: 5.5/10 (Decent) – Not bad this one. Most of the real fun came in the first 6 laps or so, once everyone got settled, it was your classic dirty air modern MotoGP race. Unfortunate that not even Brno could save that, but it’s still better than a good chunk of races this season. MotoGP’s now on a summer break, expect a mid-season review out next week. See you back in Austria in three weeks time.
- This isn’t a jab at Brno by the way – The riders LOVED the resurfacing. Grippy, smooth, eliminating all the old bumps. Can we send them to Silverstone? ↩︎
- Only Jorge Martin has more (16). At this rate he’ll be ahead of him before the season’s finished. ↩︎
- And, it got Aprilia to stay in Tier C of concessions by just seven points. I know, being in Tier D would make development easier, but this is a matter of pride for the Italians. ↩︎
