Marco Bezzecchi
Alex Marquez has enjoyed one of the better pre-seasons of anyone on the MotoGP grid and has sprung a surprise ahead of the 2025 season.
The Spaniard, who is yet to claim a victory in MotoGP, has shown some very impressive pace at tests in both Sepang and Buriram for Gresini.
Marquez had the fastest sprint simulation run of any driver in Malaysia last week, five-tenths faster than brother Marc on a factory Ducati machine.
He has the pleasure of riding the GP24 bike this season – a dominant machine that the factory team have opted to remain with after the Thailand tests.
Michele Masini says Marquez has been ‘really exciting’ so far and is eager to see what the start of the season holds for them in just over two weeks.
After a tricky campaign last year, Marquez has promised not to repeat a 2024 Gresini mistake by focusing on his rivals too much. He wants to keep all focus on himself.
Alex Marquez admits Gresini are ‘not ready’ to fight for MotoGP championship
The last day of pre-season testing at Buriram saw Marquez complete a full race distance and lap impressively fast.
He couldn’t quite match the pace of his brother but appeared to be not too far behind (0.4s or so), which would put him in the hunt.
Marquez also set a ‘super impressive’ time at the Sepang test, which was very close to Francesco Bagnaia’s pole lap from 2024. It’s hard not to be excited in his camp right now.
He refuses to get ahead of himself, telling GPOne that his goal isn’t to fight for the championship and that his team aren’t ready for that sort of step yet.
“Seeing what Marc is doing, I see victory as difficult. My goal is not to fight for the world championship, we are not ready for that,” he said.
“But it’s true, why not, winning a few races and doing well are realistic goals. I feel very good on the bike, and with the team, we are working well.”
Alex Marquez hints that Ducati riders are ‘lying’ after Sepang test
The season-opening Thailand Grand Prix is a suitable spot for the curtains to be raised on the 2025 MotoGP campaign.
Teams will have collected plenty of data over the last two days and should have a good idea of what setup and bike configurations they can extract the most performance from in a race weekend.
READ MORE: MotoGP fans can’t believe what they’ve just seen during Gresini’s ‘magnificent’ 2025 bike launch
It appears that Ducati may have slightly more competition this year after opting to remain with their GP24 engine for the next two years – it could bring their satellite teams, as well as KTM and Aprilia into play.
Marquez hinted Ducati’s factory riders were lying at the Sepang test and believed that they pushed more than they were willing to admit.
The only thing that matters is how much pace they turn up with on March 2 in pursuit of yet another championship.
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