It is a short and very busy week between Barcelona and Misano, and the final hectic run of the 2025 MotoGP season is in full swing. A private test for Honda and Yamaha at Barcelona on Monday, where Fabio Quartararo is to swing a leg over Yamaha's V4 for the first time, while Honda continue work on the new chassis and swingarm they have been using for a couple of races. Then on to Misano for the San Marino GP (I will spare you the full official name, which is nearly as long as some of my articles), and the last in-season official test of 2025 on the Monday after Misano. On Tuesday, a private test of the first versions of Pirelli's MotoGP tires, in preparation for their entry in 2027.
One thing that won't be happening at Misano is Marc Márquez wrapping up the 2025 MotoGP title. If Marc Márquez wins both the Saturday sprint race and the Sunday GP, and Alex Márquez DNFs or scores zero points in both races, Marc comes up 3 points short of the title at Misano. Two DNFs for Alex were always going to be improbable, but even if, as has been the case for a large part of the 2025 season, Alex finishes second to Marc at Misano, Marc has a reasonably comfortable path to the title at Motegi.
The math is complicated by all of the possible combinations of sprint and Sunday GPs, and the two different points tables. But it boils down to this. If Marc Márquez scores 77 points over the next six weekends (an average of 12.8 points, or finishing fourth every Sunday, and not points on Saturday), he is champion, even if Alex Márquez wins every race and every sprint from here on in. For reference, so far in 2025, Marc Márquez has scored just under 32.5 points a weekend, hoarding 87.7% of all of the points on offer. The math may be complicated, but the outcome is all but inevitable.
But Marc Márquez can be beaten. Alex Márquez proved that in Barcelona. And the Gresini Ducati rider would have handsomely outscored his brother, had he not needlessly crashed out of the lead on Saturday. But that sprint crash had given Alex Márquez the motivation he needed not to make the same mistake again. "That mistake is still painful on my head, but it was the best way to forget that," the Gresini Ducati rider told the press conference. "Also I need to say that that mistake helped me to win today because I was already braking so late in the corner and made that mistake."
Alex Márquez celebrated victory by taking a roll in the gravel at Turn 10, the place he crashed in the sprint, to show it who was boss, giving it the finger for good measure. "When I was going to Turn 10, it was like I hate that corner today and I need to take revenge." It was sweet indeed for the Gresini rider.
Try as he might, Marc Márquez could just not get close enough to his brother. "From FP1 he was one or two tenths faster than me. With the new tire a bit more, but especially with the used tire he was there," the Ducati Lenovo rider told the press conference. "The rhythm that he was able to do was a bit too much for me."
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