“…What the hell was that?!”
Hey folks, Dre back at it once again with two Race Reviews in one day for another DRR Double Header! In Part 1 of the adventure, MotoGP’s second stop in their flyaway mini-calendar as the sport headed to Mandalika for the Indonesian Grand Prix. And with it, we got aura farming, a large dollop of Bozo gene, another potentially big Marc Marquez injury and MotoGP’s second youngest ever winner, all shrouded in mystery. Let’s try and make sense of it all.
A Follow-Up On The Hall of Fame
I need to catch up on a couple of things because sadly, I didn’t have time to write a conventional Race Review on Motegi (Sorry about that!), but we got some further clarification on the Hall of Fame, and Dorna’s direction for the series. It’ll be for riders who have achieved two or more Premier Class MotoGP World Titles OR have 25 Premier Class victories. It’s been done as a distinctive separator from the sport’s legends wing, and to differentiate from the fact that nearly every World Champion (And some others like Randy Mamola) were already inducted there, they had to up the ante for people to make the cut. Why 25? I suspect because Dorna wanted Kevin Schwantz who has exactly that count, but only one World Title.
My opinion? MotoGP dug itself into a hole for being a bit too liberal with the Legends inductions in the first place. Most of the World Champions being in were a no-brainer, but then the waters got muddy when Randy Mamola and Andrea Dovizioso were inducted and questions were asked about the threshold of rider needed to get in. Now we’ve got that distinction, even if it means those in lower classes deserve acknowledgement.
MotoGP probably wouldn’t have had a boom period in Spain if it wasn’t for the great Angel Nieto – A 12+1 time World Champion who won all of his titles on 125 and 50cc machinery, and whose popularity as a winner in Spain transcended the sport itself. Or Kork Ballington, one of the greatest African riders of all-time doubling up on 350 and 250cc titles back-to-back.
It seems Dorna are walking back the on-screen dialogue on World Championship acknowledgement after Ducati’s very sly “More than a Number dig” as a debate broke out on how many World Championships Marc has, but the news of the paddock being reconfigured to shun the smaller classes does seem to be holding up, given Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezepelta confirmed that MotoGP’s taking more of a priority. Now I need to make the point – This is Dorna’s doing and not Liberty Media that so many bike fans want to point fingers at via new ownership. And if you’ve been paying attention, it’s been leaning this way for the last few years.
Personally, I’m conflicted. Moto3 was long overdue an overhaul, and we more or less got confirmation that new, more powerful bikes are coming, a welcome change. But less airtime and less coverage means both them and Moto2 are going to be getting less revenue. Less revenue means the series struggles to make new fans care, and forces teams to take on more paying riders to keep the lights on, given many have already said that Dorna’s subsidies for the teams aren’t enough. It’s why many of the teams on the paddock can’t afford $100,000 a year on a decent social media team to help actually get the attention they deserve and need. A big walking Catch 22.
But at the same time – This is the nature of what we’d now categorize as Junior Motorsport. Moto2 and 3 are still standalone World Championships in their own right, but the sense of prestige has faded as riders have climbed up the ranks faster than ever before, and the nature of riders like Max Biaggi, Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa taking multiple years to move up have largely gone away. Across the aisle, the days of Formula 3000 are long gone, and F2 and F3 are now series that struggle to gain respect for money taking priority while viewers largely don’t care.
I’m not sure why MotoGP’s ladder now feels similar – Maybe the uniform rebranding of the series in 2010 and 2011 respectively while changing the 250 and 125 bikes out for 760’s and ultra-light 250’s contributed too.
It’s a bold new era for MotoGP under Liberty, and there’s genuine chances for the sport to grow as it heads into the future. But I’m not sure from a storytelling standpoint, a historical one, or a revenue generating one, that this is the right path.
Ducati and the GPXX
At this point, Ducati’s Factory Team might as well announce their bikes in the same way you’d boot up a Megaman game from the 1990’s. “In the year 2025, Pecco Bagania rides a Ducati GPXX and tries to look like a MotoGP rider again!”
There were a lot of murmurs in the paddock after Bagnaia’s brilliant Double Victory that he had done so on a converted 2024 frame that wasn’t originally used back from the Thailand test. Credit to the excellent David Emmett for spotting that they took a homologation sticker off a very shiny frame in Japan that Pecco used in the race, combined with just about every other 2024 part they could manage, including the Swingarm, the aero package and forks.
It got murkier when the paddock came to Indonesia – By Friday it was an open secret that Bagnaia had used a GP24 as far back as the Misano test, with Uccio Salucci admitting that they’d loaned Franco Morbidelli’s bike to Ducati for it. But strangely enough, neither Pecco Bagnaia or team manager Davide Tardozzi would admit that this had happened, and it led to some simmering beef between the two parties.
Whatever the backstory, Bagnaia’s Japanese brilliance felt very much like a one-off in Indonesia. He was part of an overall Ducati collective struggle I’ll talk about more in a bit, but Bagnaia looked off the pace all weekend. Q1-bound, 16th on the grid, nowhere in the Sprint, and then a crash in the race itself, losing the front at the final corner. If that wasn’t bad enough, Bagania’s pace was alarmingly slow – Two seconds a lap slower than the eventual winner Fermin Aldeguer and lapping at Somkiat Chantra’s pace by the time he binned. Some unserious people even speculated he crashed on purpose to make a point. I suspect these people joined Gigi Dall’Igna in jumping into a shallow pool over the week.
Ducati on any level, has handled this really badly. There’d be no shame at this point admitting you’ve gone back to a GP24 on key elements of the hike. You have nothing to play for in terms of accomplishments – The Triple Crown was secured after the Sprint Race, and Bagnaia’s almost certainly locked into third at best in the standings. It’s all another wrinkle in the development process. Instead, the unnecessary defensiveness has led to people speculating more wildly about what’s going on. As I wrote this someone fairly asked me if Pecco really had a GP24, including an engine they once claimed couldn’t be moved due to the homologation rules. Any PR agency would tell you this is a fundamental fuck up, because you’ve set off a bomb in your own backyard.
And as I type this, Bagnaia’s refused to speak to the media. In the limited interviews he did have over the weekend, he seemed genuinely baffled at events as they unfolded. It’s been teased before, but you have to wonder just what this relationship is between Bagnaia and Ducati at this point. A team that has tried everything to try and have Pecco succeed, often at their own detriment, blips of success here and there but ultimately an entire season being deemed a write-off, and everyone involved trying to stay as polite as they can about an immensely difficult situation. Surely this is becoming untenable, especially with Alex Marquez confirmed to be getting a GP26 next season – That feels like Ducati taking out an insurance policy. More on that later.
Heat Stroke
Indonesia’s quickly becoming the biggest outlier race on the MotoGP calendar. A shorter track, but very technical with some quick body-shifting corner sequences and some very slow corners. It’s a great all-round test of a rider and his machinery, with another challenge of 30-35 degree weather thrown in given the October run-time. Pirelli have to bring an extra layer of casing in their tires to protect them from track temperatures that climb into the 50’s.
And we saw the dramatic effect it had on the field. There was one man who stood tallest amongst the chaos of Ducati genuinely struggling – Marco Bezzecchi. Aprilia’s always gone well when tracks lack grip and are slippery. Mandalika doesn’t see a lot of Motorsport across the year, the track took a whole day to really rubber in, and Aprilia’s high-downforce package helps Bez fly through the corners, especially in Sector 2, where he was as much as three tenths a lap quicker than some very fast riders. When the soft rear tyre comes into play for Ducati, it has so much grip, that it pushes the front tyre and causes chatter – think back to when Alex Marquez crashed in Catalunya from the lead of the Sprint.
Bez took a record-breaking pole positon, but a poor start in the Sprint had him drop to sixth. Even so, he had more than half a second extra pace in hand on nearly everyone but Aldeguer, and with him, he carved through the field almost at will. Luca Marini held on a little longer, but ultimately couldn’t keep Bez at bay. And when Pedro Acosta crashed from second, it left Bez a clear path to pass Aldeguer on the final lap for his second Sprint win of 2025.
The GP though was a different story. Another poor start from Bez dropped him back, only this time, he completely missed his braking point for Turn 5 and clattered into Marc Marquez, both riders crashing at over 90mph. Marc came off the worst of it – latest reports at time of writing say he’s broken something in his collarbone. He’ll be flying back to Madrid tonight to survey the damage and what the best course of action is.
It left the race clear for Fermin Aldeguer to go off and dominate as the chasing group behind him got into an almighty barney. Why was Fermin so good? Well, having one of the best crew chiefs in the game helps,. Frankie Carchedi is a bike whisperer. He set up Fermin’s bike to take away some of that rear grip on the Ducati, and instead focus on corner speed and entry. By taking some of the GP24’s banzai acceleration away, it helps Aldeguer learn the bike. Throw in the fact that Fermin loves the Mandalika track, and he was off to the races. A seven-second margin of victory the biggest the grid has seen in 2025, and it peaked at well over nine. Fermin gave the field the pinata treatment.
It’s been a bit of a rocky road for the Rookie of the Year as he’s had to learn a lot of what makes the Ducati so potent, and that naturally comes with some erratic results. But his Moto2 promise and winning streak always had people believing that he was worth a punt. He’s been Ducati’s big “Plan C” insurance policy for the year, and while there’s been lows, when he’s hit, he’s hit big. He’s the first rookie to win a MotoGP race since Jorge Martin four years ago, that Austrian comeback, the double podium at Le Mans in the rain and shine, and now, MotoGP’s second youngest ever race winner, just 120 days older than Marquez back in Austin 12 years ago.
A 1-3 finish and one hand on the prize of MotoGP’s second best team. Combine that with some of the best social media and the story of Nadia Padovani picking up where her late husband Fausto Gresini left off – It’s a wonderful story that more need to pick up on. PS: Alex Marquez’s third place sealed him the “Independent Title”. Good for him.
The Lightning Round
I do sincerely hope that the aura farming viral kid was okay, the little man looked exhausted going around the paddock flexing for the “content”.
Yes, there’s been beef in the past between Marquez and Bezzecchi. It got squashed after Misano. People on both sides of the aisle need to calm down. And yes, it should probably be a Double Long Lap Penalty for Bez, it was clearly a cut above the LLP that Marquez got in the Sprint for punting Alex Rins.
Speaking of, a genuinely great weekend for the other Spaniard. Second row on the grid, and at one point, running in the podium spots. Hope it’s the start of something more for Alex, who’s badly needed some proper results.
How sheepish will Dorna feel about their backstage Parc Ferme videos they pass around on social media being used to describe how shit the gravel trap was for Marquez’s crash?
Also worth noting – Frankie Carchedi has now crew chiefed four different MotoGP race winners – Fabio Di Giannantonio, Joan Mir, Marc Marquez and now Fermin Aldeguer. Hell of a legacy.
Raul Fernandez on an Aprilia, the strongest bike this weekend – This is the one-time sixth for the Trackhouse feels like a disappointment. Nice livery, mind. And thankfully for Aprilia, Bez was okay post crash – Imagine them going to Philip Island in two weeks time and they’d be going with one healthy factory rider. Get Aprilia some reserves – Is Joe Roberts still keen?
Huge win for future MotoGP rider Diogo Moreira. Not only a dominant win in Moto2, his main title rival Manu Gonzalez was disqualified from second for running non-homologated software, a similar discrepancy to Ai Ogura’s in MotoGP’s Argentina race. It probably wasn’t for performance enhancing reasons, but a very, VERY costly organisational mistake for Dynavolt Intact Racing. If Manu loses the title by less than 20 points, man…
Congratulations to Jose Antonio Rueda for dominating the Moto3 Championship and taking the title this weekend. He’s rocked the 99 in tribute to Jorge Lorenzo and he’s ridden like it all season long. Fast, intelligent, and thriving in one of racing’s most chaotic series. Good for him and I’m excited to see what he can do on a Moto2 bike.
Hate to bring the mood down a bit too, but this needs to be said – Valentin Perrone in Moto3 crashed on Friday morning, gets knocked out in the crash, KTM reveal he was knocked out in a press release, is declared fit for the rest of the weekend, only to be declared unfit again after “further discussion”. MotoGP’s head injury “protocol” remains farcical and unfit for a World Championship sport. It needed to be addressed a decade ago and it’s maddening that it’s still not happened.
The Verdict: 8/10 (Great) – Given we had such a dominant winner, this was a genuinely great race. Pedro Acosta put in a shift on a KTM that did not want to turn properly, and we got many passes in the fight for second between Alex Marquez, Luca Marini, both Yamaha’s, Raul Fernandez and Brad Binder at the end. It was everything great and bad about the sport, stuffed in a blender and then “frappe” was hit. See you on the Island.
