Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez is leaving the MotoGP field in his wake after a dominant start to the six-time champion’s Ducati career ahead of going home for the 2025 Grand Prix of Spain.
The 32-year-old will race on home soil for the Bologna Bullets for the first time this weekend at Jerez. Marquez even arrives for a Spanish GP as the championship leader for the first time since the 2020 edition kicked off that term with the Cervera native the defending champion.
Marquez’s career nearly ended at the 2020 Spanish GP when he highsided at Turn 3 chasing Fabio Quartararo of Yamaha while riding for Honda. The Spaniard was also struck by his bike and violently barrel rolled through the gravel, which saw Marquez suffer a broken right arm.
A broken arm is putting the injury he suffered very mildly, as Marquez initially required three operations after breaking his right humerus at Jerez after the bone was also twisted by more than 30 degrees. He had a fourth surgery to have the bone rebroken and set back into place.
Marc Marquez will not ‘dare say’ he is happier at Ducati in 2025 than with Honda in 2019
Marquez was ‘afraid’ his arm would never recover after crashing in the 2020 Spanish GP. But he will head to Jerez for the 2025 race as the championship leader after taking pole position at all four of Marquez’s first races for Ducati plus four Sprint wins and three Grand Prix wins.
The six-time premier class champion, who won each of his titles for Honda before moving to Gresini in 2024, leads his brother Alex Marquez by 17 points and has a 26-point lead against Ducati teammate, Francesco Bagnaia. But Marquez will not he is happier now than in 2019.
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Marquez won the riders’ championship every year except for 2015 from 2013 to 2019, when he also won 12 of the 19 Grands Prix and scored 10 pole positions for Honda. But he will not say the Spaniard is happier now as Marquez will not hand himself the same pressure to win.
“I don’t dare say it louder but I am calmer. Much calmer,” Marquez has told AS. “In 2019, the only thing that mattered was winning, and that’s why there was so much pressure. This year, there’s the same pressure – people expect me to win.
“But I personally don’t feel that pressure because of everything I’ve been through. The most important thing is that I don’t feel indebted to myself. I’ve tried everything I could, and now I’m enjoying the podiums and the victories.”
Marc Marquez could win the Grand Prix of Spain for the first time since 2019 this season
There is only one blemish on Marquez’s record for Ducati so far in the 2025 MotoGP season as the Spaniard looks to win his first premier class title since 2019 with Honda. Marquez fell in the lead of the Grand Prix of the Americas and gifted Bagnaia his only win so far this year.
Marquez is clearly benefitting from not putting himself under any undue pressure to deliver for Ducati ahead of his first Grand Prix of Spain dressed in the iconic red. It could also return the Cervera native’s first Jerez win since the 2019 term he refuses to say he is happier than.
Honda saw Marquez take P9 on his return to Jerez for the 2021 Spanish GP plus P4 in 2022, before missing the 2023 race due to a hand injury he sustained at that year’s Portuguese GP. Marquez secured his first Grand Prix podium on a Ducati for Gresini at Jerez in 2024 with P2.
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