Welcome back to Part 2 of my MotoGP 2025 Season Review. Last time out, we looked at the Japanese Cup and the Junior categories. Next up, two factory teams with a lot of under the radar stories to tell and questions to ask about their immediate future. From the tricky ownership crisis that KTM is in, and Aprilia – Is their rapid rise a mirage?
Before we go on, an update – Ducati’s final section was so large, it demanded its own section. So with it, it’ll be in Part 3 next Tuesday. See you then!
KTM (Manufacturer Position: Third – 372 Points = 45.7%, Tier C for 2026)
Things are never quiet at KTM for long, and it was another year of relative chaos across the brands two teams.
And that’s despite the fact that on raw performance, KTM are pretty much… exactly where they were last year. They had 44.1% of the maximum in 2024, so a very small improvement this year, and somehow, they’re still winless since 2022, despite getting agonisingly close at times this season.
It was a frustrating first half of the season. The only real flash in orange was Maverick Vinales’ outstanding performance in Qatar, second on the road but demoted to 14th after a tire pressure infringement. Yes, the surprise element of KTM leading a MotoGP race, ultimately led to them being punished. It’s as stupid as it sounds.
But their first actual podium as a brand didn’t land until Brno, where developmental changes seemingly led to a breakthrough. I say seemingly – KTM have been very tight lipped about it, and have actually barred top-end journos like Mat Oxley from speaking to their engineers. Great. We do know that they had very similar rear end adjustments made around Le Mans, but not much else is known in detail. The bike is still excellent at top end speed, and can still turn well in the right hands, but rear grip has been a perennial issue and their tire wear has been poor in the back end of races.
It didn’t help that the first half of the season was plagued by yet more behind-the-scenes KTM drama. Pedro Acosta was kicking up a mighty stink about the team’s performance and was actively shopping himself around the other manufacturers, with Honda allegedly having a 3-year, £25m offer on the table. But ultimately, nobody wanted to stump up the rumoured six million euro release clause in his contract. I do wonder if the teams saw Acosta through the end of this season, if they would be a bit more keen to lock down his signature for 2027.
Because KTM was a very different beast post-summer break. 6 GP podiums in the back half of the season, all from Pedro Acosta, who also had seven Sprint podiums too. We already could see where the future of KTM was headed, this was the year Acosta became not just the talisman for the team, but one of the best MotoGP riders on the grid, period. Man did everything but win, including hassling the shit out of both Marquez brothers, and Marco Bezzecchi. With Acosta at the front, they’ve got a shot.
The problem is, like Yamaha, there’s issues with rider quality. Brad Binder needs a reset after another difficult season, and the clear feeling that Acosta’s passed him by. A new crew chief might help there. At Tech3, Maverick Vinales had highlights, but his season was completely derailed after an enormous highside in Germany broke off part of his shoulder. He still wasn’t 100% at the end of the season and had to take time off to aid his recovery. And Enea Bastianini… less said the better.
But that still isn’t enough for KTM. Tech3 was sold by Herve Poncheral, stepping back from team leader/owner for the first time since 1989, a near 40-year run as one of the sport’s first and maybe last true independents in GP bike racing, as Guenther Stiener’s new management team comes in. Herve was responsible for giving so much great talent places in the sport, especially from other series – Colin Edwards, James Toseland, Ben Spies, Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro to name a few. He’s going to be badly missed, one of the sport’s true characters.
Oh and there’s the small matter of their future STILL not being secure. Bajaj Auto, the Indian biking firm now owns 100% of the KTM group after being saved from liquidation in the Austrian courts. And via TV interviews, they made it pretty clear that they don’t want to go racing. The talk is, they want to reduce the running costs of KTM by 50%, and their first look at the books had them roughly say: “Why are only 40% of your staff on production?” And we all know that if you want to cut costs, there’s one very easy way to do it – don’t go racing.
The talk now is that CFMoto, the Chinese bike maker, are now interested in buying out KTM Racing. It makes sense, they’ve sponsored Aspar’s Moto2 and 3 teams, and they’ve got a 990cc, 210bhp V4 prototype that could be entering World Superbikes soon, and it could be a situation where buying KTM Racing could enable CF Moto to have their engineers build their machines. The only hitch? KTM has put a 100 MILLION euro price tag on the package. Pricey, even for a company that is set to make over $2.5bn in revenue this year.
So will KTM still be on the grid beyond next year? Maybe, but under a different name. We’ll see. As a whole this team is close, but still with many questions to answer.
Red Bull KTM Tech3 (9th)
Maverick Vinales – 18th in Points (72), 3 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 4th / Average Start and Finish: 13.4
Sprint Ranking: 12th / Grand Prix Ranking: 19th (14 Races)
Enea Bastianini – 14th in Points (112), 1 Podium, 1 Sprint Podium, 8 Top 10’s / Average Start: 16.3 / Average Finish: 12.4
Sprint Ranking: 16th / Grand Prix Ranking: 14th (21 Races)
Maverick Vinales’ enigmatic career continues. You just can’t ever get a read on the guy. In the first half of the season, he felt like he was going to be the spearhead for KTM’s development. As mentioned, he was excellent in Qatar, without question the nearest KTM had been to a win all season and was second on the road before the tire pressure penalty. He was pushing for rear end changes early on, where he had a pair of Top 5 finishes in Spain and Le Mans too. Probably should have had another in Mugello but he was wiped out by Franco Morbidelli after finishing fourth in the Sprint.
It looked really good for Maverick to be deep in the Top 10 for the season, until Germany. That highside was a bigger horror crash than we gave it credit for at the time. It actually broke off part of Maverick’s shoulder, and even Mav and KTM themselves underestimated the level of recovery needed. Through fragmented recoveries, Maverick missed a grand total of eight race weekends, and pulled out of a ninth half way through Valencia. And during that time, in the limited capacity he was in, The Mav from the first half was gone, replaced by a Vinales in pain, and unable to tap into his full potential, barely running in the points.
I don’t think anyone left more on the table this season than Vinales did, and he knows it too. So he’s gone and hired MotoGP Hall of Famer Jorge Lorenzo as his new performance coach, helping with diet, fitness and mental strength. Vinales is still such a questionable rider. At times, his talent shines so brightly. But finding that consistency and fulfillment has always eluded him. Is Jorge the answer? I watch with intrigue, but I do wonder if two highly strung egos can co-exist in the same camp.
Enea Bastianini was always facing a difficult challenge walking away from Ducati’s factory team and being sacrificed for Marc Marquez. From the moment he had a big crash at the very first Barcelona test with KTM, I was nervous about the switch, and I was proven somewhat right.
Enea had flashes and elements of what made him so good as a rider across his career come up now and again. That rear tire management that allowed him to push hard in the final 33% of a race. Some really strong raw speed in there too. But he constantly struggled to put that together over a whole weekend. And when he struggled, it was painful to watch. At Silverstone, he was telling the press he was the worst rider on the grid – And when you were finishing 52 seconds off the win, it’s hard to argue.
Then shit got weird. A fifth in Austria, then shortly after a genuine podium in the Grand Prix in Catalunya, only to then immediately split with crew chief Alberto Giribuola. Allegedly there were contractual disputes between the pair, and Giribuola is heading to Pramac to work with Toprak for 2026. In comes Xavi Palacin, and he will have his work cut out.
Bastianini still has pace on occasion, but the consistency badly needs work. A lot of the time we saw it, an error or crash wasn’t far away. 14th in the standings is a disappointment given the potential and results of others in this camp and so far, it’s difficult to call his KTM tenure successful. Must try harder.
Maverick Vinales – N/A / Enea Bastianini – 4/10
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing (4th)
Pedro Acosta – 4th in Points (307), 5 Podiums, 7 Sprint Podiums, 17 Top 10’s / Average Start: 7.4 / Average Finish: 7.86
Sprint Ranking: 5th / Grand Prix Ranking: 4th
Brad Binder – 11th in Points (155), 14 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 4th / Average Start: 9.9 / Average Finish: 10.7
Sprint Ranking: 14th / Grand Prix Ranking: 11th
Feels a little weird to say given what we now know with Aprilia that this is the best non-Ducati team in the standings, huh?
Brad Binder used to run the house here, so much so he was the best non-Ducati rider in the Championship until 2024, but he’s been swept to one side since Pedro Acosta rolled up. This was the most evident season yet that something needs to change in his camp. The Qualifying form has never been Brad’s point and he struggled this year to the point where he was limping into Q2’s every other weekend. But the bigger issue was that usual racing trim recovery that Binder was known for, just didn’t happen in 2025. Often stuck in the midfield, and only making late progress at the end of races, and that’s if his KTM had any tire left.
The message has hit home, with Brad now given Phil Marron as a crew chief, the former partner of Triple WSBK Champion Toprak Razgatioglu. The Valencia Test was apparently a big success, with a redesigned seat fit and a new setup tweak that according to the man himself, gave himself a good feeling on the Michelin tires, something he thinks he’s been lacking to this point. Fingers crossed for the Springbok that it finds him something as he enters a contract year.
As for Pedro Acosta, yeah, he’s the real deal. In his two seasons in the top flight so far, he’s felt like a confusing blend of being exceptionally fast, while still being a work in progress, like he’s growing up in real time. He was having a big ol’ sulk at the start of the season when the results weren’t quite there and he was threatening to leave, but he got his head down, worked with his team, and looked as strong as the elite riders in the class by year’s end.
I still think he’s a little crash happy at times, taking some unnecessary risks to harm himself (His qualifying could have been elite, only very good), but the back end of the season was the strongest evidence he’s now a Top 5 rider. Nine out of his final 10 races (Sprints included) were Top 5’s, with seven of them podium finishes. It’s actually starting that this grid now has 17 Grand Prix winners in it heading into 2026, and Pedro Acosta ISN’T one of them. It’s coming, and I’d be shocked if next year isn’t Pedro breaking that glass ceiling.
Brad Binder – 6/10 / Pedro Acosta – 8.5/10
Aprilia – Manufacturer Position: Second – 418 Points = 51.3%, Tier C for 2026
Aprilia’s in a strange place. They’ve felt like the underachievers of MotoGP, the brand most likely to push the boat out to try and make gains on Ducati, but it’s never truly felt like they’ve made the progress needed to truly upset the apple cart.
2025, felt like a breakthrough, but man did it have to juggle some bullshit to get there. Arguably THE biggest silly season story of the year centered around signing reigning World Champion, Jorge Martin. Martin had a disastrous off-season – Crashing hard in the Sepang test, before hurting himself again in rehab for the season opener, and then missing the first three races.
When he finally made his debut in Qatar, he fell off his bike, right into the oncoming path of Fabio Di Giannantonio, who ran him over and sent him to hospital with 11 broken ribs and a punctured lung. By any measure, a lucky escape that could have, maybe should have taken his life. And Jorge knew it too, and that was the problem.
In the time away, Jorge got paranoid that the Aprilia was dangerous and tried to hurt him. He didn’t want to ride for them anymore, and travelled in secret to Le Mans after just one race with the team and demanded to quit, citing an injury clause that to this day, we don’t know whether it actually existed in the contract. Seriously, breaking the story with Tank Slappers under the Motorsport Network was one of the proudest moments of my time with them. What we did know was that if Martin was outside of the Top 5 in the standings after six races, Martin could bail at the end of 2025, a year early – A clause Martin’s camp slapped into the deal at the last minute when negotiating.
What came next was a nasty stand off between Martin and his agent Albert Valera, and Aprilia. Martin was professional in person, showing up to Aprilia’s All-Stars event and training for a return, and even giving the team the chance to reset the escape clause for the six races he was set to return for after his injury – But Aprilia was having none of it. They were prepared to take Martin to the Italian Courts and drag out a tough legal battle if necessary, while at the same time, trying to convince Martin to stand down, even using Marco Bezzecchi’s shock win at Silverstone as a “please come and stay, we’d love you back” moment.
Martin eventually backed down when Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezepelta chimed in saying that his license would be suspended if he was in contract limbo for 2026, and his escape plan of Honda getting cold feet and wanting the legal matter resolved too. So Martin stayed, and realised that Aprilia still loved him, and the bike was actually pretty fucking fast.
The back half of 2025 was the return of 2022 Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia’s new talisman rediscovering his old form from his Ducati GP21 days. Bez became the biggest thorn in Marc Marquez’s side, hassling him in Assen, Brno and an emotional weekend in Misano where just one mistake opened the door for Marc to beat him, and give the Messi celebration in old rival Valentino Rossi’s old backyard. It also brought out the best in Raul Fernandez at Trackhouse, who’d finally break through to take his first Premier Class win in Philip Island, and win comfortably, following it up with second at the season finale in Valencia.
Aprilia shattered their own records. First 1-2 finish since 2023. A back-to-back winner for the first time ever, taking four wins as a manufacturer, three with the factory team, and the first time any rider had won three times in a single season. Just one problem… there’s a whiff of Fool’s Gold about it all.
Bez’s huge error in Mandalika led to a nasty crash that damaged Marc Marquez’s collarbone. It led to the Spaniard taking surgery on it, and ending his season early. Everyone knew that Marc was the spearhead of the Ducati team, and when he was gone, Aprilia won three out of the final four races that Marc wasn’t there for. So, has Aprilia really turned a corner, or have they just taken advantage of the fact that the best rider in the world was out of commission in garbage time?
I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. Aprilia hassled Marc for half the season via Bez. Even Jorge Martin had a brilliant Balaton when he went from the back to fourth. There definitely feels like legit progress has been made, but the Marquez litmus test still remains to be seen. Can Aprilia take the fight to Ducati over an entire season, or will their weaknesses like Sepang show them up again? I need to see more, but the signs are promising, more than they’ve ever been.
Trackhouse Racing (7th)
Raul Fernandez – 10th in Points (172), 1 Win, 2 Podiums, 2 Sprint Podiums, 11 Top 10’s / Average Start: 11.8 / Average Finish: 10.2
Sprint Ranking: 10th / Grand Prix Ranking: 9th (21 Races)
Ai Ogura – 16th in Points (89), 8 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 5th / Average Start: 15.6 / Average Finish: 13.3
Sprint Ranking: 17th / Grand Prix Ranking: 15th (18 Races)
I don’t care what you tell me, Trackhouse still just doesn’t feel like an American team anymore. Justin Marks was a breath of fresh air into MotoGP when he first got here, but now we should rename this team Davide Brivio Racing. He’s even got the same Suzuki colours he had when the Italian was there.
Fair play to them though, they’ve crept back up to seventh in the standings after finishing ninth last year. And on top of that, their first win under the banner name, the first for that garage in general since 2020 when they were under Razali’s ownership and they were the Petronas Yamaha team. It means every team on the MotoGP grid now has at least one victory.
Ai Ogura was looking like an early lock for Rookie of the Year. He came out of the traps like a house on fire. His testing in Buriram came through beautifully with a fourth place in the Sprint, and a fifth in the GP, hassling the very top runners in the series. Even with the team setback in Argentina when they ran non-homologated software, Ogura started the season with four Top 10’s in the first six weekends.
Then, a nasty injury. Ogura broke his leg during FP2 in Silverstone, and missed two races as a result. Not sure if the injury and the recovery hampered him as the year went on or whether it was just standard rookie teething problems, but that initial fire from Ogura faded until his sixth place finish in Barcelona. Another injury during the flyaways had him miss a pair of races with a hand injury, but the results looked worse as his teammate made breakthroughs down the stretch. Ogura needs a clean bill of health for 2026 more than anything. If anything, given the treatment of his teammate at Trackhouse, Ogura will be given a lot of time to get it right, and there was enough there to be optimistic.
As for Raul, I wrote in Australia about the story of his top-flight career, so here’s the short version. The greatest Moto2 prospect seen since Marc Marquez wanted to be a Yamaha rider, spent years grinding away at KTM and Aprilia trying to figure it out, and nearly lost his job last year. 2025 was the year that Fernandez had to put it all together. And finally, finally… he did.
It took another chunk of the season, but he genuinely got better and better as the year went on. A lot of his success went under the radar while other storylines were playing out, but around June and July, something clicked. Six Top 10 finishes in a row from Aragon through Austria, and a couple of those rounds he finished up as top independent. There was a little wobble as the European rounds finished up, but the breakthrough at Mandalika looked like the first time Fernandez could take a podium.
And of course, Philip Island. A little fortunate that Marco Bezzecchi mis-managed so much of his weekend (Mandalika’s Double Long Lap penalty aftermath), but Fernandez completely controlled a race, and his tires to beat Diggia and everyone else for that matter. And even with a head injury taking him out of Portimao early, he bounced back a week later and raced Bez hard to the line in Valencia to finish in second, just six tenths off the win.
This was the Raul Fernandez we’d been waiting four years to see. The greatest Moto2 Rookie ever, and future top-flight gem. 10th is a more than fair reward for his best year in the Premier Class, and if he can kick on from this, there’s no reason why he can’t be in the Top 6 next season.
Ai Ogura – 5/10 / Raul Fernandez – 8/10
Aprilia Racing (5th)
Marco Bezzecchi – 3rd in Points (353), 5 Pole Positions, 3 Wins, 3 Sprint Wins, 5 Pole Positions, 9 Podiums, 6 Sprint Podiums / Average Start: 7.2 / Average Finish: 7.7
Sprint and Grand Prix Ranking: 3rd
Jorge Martin – 21st in Points (34), Best Finish: 4th / Average Start: 14.7 / Average Finish: 14.6 (7 Races)
You’d have to think that if Aprilia had anything near a “normal” season in terms of Jorge Martin’s fitness, they would have breached the Top 3 in the team standings. So still finishing fifth overall with effectively one rider is an impressive feat regardless.
Obviously, I won’t be rating Jorge Martin’s season here, I already went into detail about it in the team section, so no need to repeat myself too hard. What I will add here is that when Martin was fully fit, he did look good. Going from 17th on the grid to fourth in Balaton can’t be underestimated, it was one of the strongest individual rides of 2025, and a sign that he was getting to grips to the bike reasonably quickly. Finishing three seconds on the road behind a white-hot Bez was seriously impressive. His Brno weekend back to finish seventh in the GP, also impressive. The work he put in on the ground to ready himself was clearly worth something, and I think a clean off-season at 100% health will do him the world of good. TNT Sports’ Gavin Emmett worked out that he’d missed an entire season’s worth of running through injury and that cannot be understated. Hopefully, we see Martin back at his best going into 2026, because the potential has already been seen.
Marco Bezzecchi? Welcome back to the big leagues. It took a good while for Bez to get used to the RS-GP and his early results were a bit lacklustre, including a gift of a win at Silverstone, a classic Aprilia low-grip win from yesteryear. But after Assen, he became the clear and unrivaled #2 rider in the Championship and became an absolute pest to Marc Marquez in the back half of the season.
Hassled the shit out of a wounded Marc in Assen. Only Marc had more pole positions on the year. Beaten on the final lap of a wet German sprint. Within a handful of seconds in Spielberg, Balaton and Brno. That epic duel on home soil in Misano that pushed Marc to his absolute limit, even if he’d ultimately finish second. And of course, the back-to-back wins to close out the year in Portimao and Valencia.
It’s not a perfect season by any means, if I were being harsh, I’d actually call it a bit patchy. And as mentioned earlier, the run at the end of the season was an indirect result of Bez crashing in Mandalika and taking Marquez out for four races. It’s doubly damning because Bez was comfortably the fastest man in Indonesia and should have won that race easily if the Sprint was anything to go by.
He was very fast in Philip Island too, but the DLLP from the previous round derailed his race. Three wins somehow feels low for Bez, when 5-6 is probably a more realistic number, but Bez kept tripping over his own crotch. If he wants to take that next step and become a true Championship contender, these are the mistakes that he has to eliminate, and he knows that. It’s no coincidence that he gained a lot of respect for Marquez via taking him head on and seeing just how good he is.
We’ve given Bez the “Why, not” nickname because he’s never the guy you pick for the win, but then goes and does it anyway. This for me, was his most convincing season yet, and yet it also feels a bit disappointing due to how much was left on the table. I think he should have challenged for second place overall, but didn’t. That says a lot about what he still could be. I’m more intrigued by this man for 2026 than anyone else on the grid. Why not, Bez?
Jorge Martin – N/A / Marco Bezzecchi – 9/10
In Part 3, we talk Ducati, and wrap up 2025. See you then…
