Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez won Ducati their fourth riders’ title in a row this term, but he will not be racing once again through injury this Sunday in the 2025 MotoGP Valencia Grand Prix.
The 32-year-old has had to sit out the final four rounds of the 2025 MotoGP season, as well as the Valencia test, after requiring surgery on the shoulder injury that he suffered during the Indonesian Grand Prix. Aprilia star Marco Bezzecchi ran into Marquez on Lap 1 at Mandalika.
Marquez had only just won the 2025 MotoGP riders’ title with five rounds to spare in Japan, before he suffered the season-ending injury. The Spaniard’s triumph extends the dominance of Ducati after Francesco Bagnaia’s 2022 and ‘23 titles, plus Jorge Martin in ‘24 for Pramac.
History could have awaited without Marquez requiring surgery for his shoulder injury, which immobilised his right arm to allow the coracoid process and ligaments to heal. Marquez was on course to beat his own record for taking the most Grand Prix wins in a season from 2014.
Andrea Dovizioso thinks Ducati ‘didn’t realise’ who Marc Marquez really is until he joined
Marquez scored 11 wins from the 18 Grands Prix that he contested upon joining the factory Ducati team for 2025, just two shy of matching his MotoGP record of 13 wins from 18 races for Honda in 2014. He also got 15 podiums, eight pole positions and 14 Sprint wins in 2025.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Marc Marquez from net worth to girlfriend
Andrea Dovizioso believes Marquez’s dominance this season was the result of him growing with the Ducati team, like he did with Gresini in 2024 during his first year on a Desmosedici after leaving Honda. But Marquez’s mindset at Gresini had left some at Ducati with doubts.
Former Ducati rider Dovizioso told GPOne: “Marc positively surprised Ducati and surprised various people within Ducati, who, in my opinion, didn’t realise who Marc was at all because of how he approached his arrival at Gresini after physical problems, knowing that he had to adapt and change, and that it would take time.
“So, little by little, he adapted and managed to win over the official team. He changed teams, so another change, and he started well.
“He couldn’t have done any better. The more races he did, the faster he went, because he understood things more and more. He created a better rapport with the team, and, little by little, he could express his potential more and more.”
Marc Marquez has ‘destabilised all of his opponents’ after dominating MotoGP in 2025
Marquez left Honda after the 2023 MotoGP season, ending what was the dominant pairing up until the Cervera native sustained a career-threatening injury in the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix. And Marquez joined Gresini for 2024 to prove to himself that he was still competitive.
It only took Marquez 12 rounds to score his first win for Gresini when he did the Grand Prix and Sprint double at MotorLand Aragon. Ducati had also already signed Marquez to replace Enea Bastianini in their factory team from 2025 before he won riding the Desmosedici GP23.
Marquez’s move to Ducati and the jump to a GP25 this year then returned him to the very top of MotoGP for the first time since 2019, when he beat Dovizioso for the third year in a row for the title. And Dovizioso believes Marquez will have “destabilised” his rivals in 2025.
Dovizioso continued: “I think this has somewhat destabilised all of his opponents, because when you see a talent like this in MotoGP in terms of data, but also in terms of approach, it’s heavy. It is devastating.”
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