Why masterful Marc Marquez Qatar MotoGP win is a hammer blow to his rivals

There is little point in trying to dress up the fact: the biggest threat to Marc Marquez’s 2025 MotoGP title hopes, already, is himself. That was perfectly demonstrated at the Americas Grand Prix late last month, when he crashed out of a commanding lead at a circuit he has been embarrassingly good at in his MotoGP career.

That mistake dropped him a point out of the championship lead and reset the board heading to a Qatar GP weekend he said from the outset he expected to struggle at.

Since his debut in MotoGP in 2013, he has won at the Lusail International Circuit once - and that was over 10 years ago in 2014 when he was only just beginning to test his powers as this generations best talent.

Ducati long had the Qatar GP earmarked as the weekend in which Marquez’s team-mate Pecco Bagnaia would finally come to the table as a serious player. His fortunate COTA win aside, the double world champion’s start to the year has been lacklustre. Marc Marquez also anticipated threats from Alex Marquez, who led the standings coming into Qatar, as well as others like Fabio Di Giannantonio.

After Friday practice Marc Marquez looked good on his factory Ducati, but Bagnaia did look better. Then it all unravelled for Bagnaia on Saturday when a crash in Q2 left him 11th on the grid and the now-infamous small fuel tank troubles blighted his sprint as he struggled to eighth.

His team-mate snatched pole from Alex Marquez with a new lap record and then controlled the sprint. The grand prix wasn’t as outwardly dominant for the elder Marquez brother, but the way he played the field as if they were all on the end of bits of string led to one of his best victories ever and certainly his most masterful as a Ducati rider.

Branding it his “most important” weekend of 2025, the complexion change to the season that was touted for Qatar didn’t emerge. Instead, Marquez came away from one of his weakest venues with a perfect score and retakes as 17-point lead in the standings.

Marc Marquez’s strategy masterclass trumps Qatar GP rivals

The Qatar GP is always a tough one on tyres, but Marquez was especially fearful of his front tyre life, admitting on the grid that he was “struggling” in this area throughout the weekend.

“It will be a tough race, a very long race, especially for the way to manage the tyres,” he said. “Now my opponents aren’t listening anymore [I can say] I’m struggling a bit with the life of the front tyre, I need to be careful with that front tyre.”

The contact with Alex Marquez - which Marc Marquez accepted blame for - and resulting bike damage wasn’t part of the script, not that it had any ill-effect on him. Marc Marquez was fine with Franco Morbidelli leading the race for the first 10 tours as he was convinced the VR46 rider would burn up his tyres. Behind, Bagnaia and Maverick Vinales were putting in strong laps to reel him in.

Between laps two and six, Bagnaia was faster than Marquez. But coming from 11th on the grid, both factory Ducati riders knew Bagnaia’s tyres would be cooked by this advance up the order. When Bagnaia came through on Marquez on lap five, he didn’t panic and from lap seven upped his pace to get back ahead and begin his chase of the lead.

Marquez would still be passed by a charging Vinales on lap 10 of 22, but keeping that medium front tyre in check was his only priority.

“I worked a lot during the weekend,” he said. “I did a step on the right fast corners, which was also super important. And as we see in the race, I did a different strategy because I just managed the front tyre. I knew that doing that strategy maybe Pecco would arrive because I slowed down the race a lot. Morbidelli was going but I didn’t care. I was just controlling my front tyre because I was not able to ride at my limit because I have a riding style that pushes the front a lot.

“And in this circuit we struggled a lot. But then I just waited, when Pecco overtook me I said ‘ok, now I start the race’, and I started to push more. The last seven laps when I overtook Vinales, just I increased a bit more the brakes, the push, the turning and just tried to use the front tyre more. And that’s where I made the step.”

Over the full race distance, Marquez’s average pace was only 0.067s quicker than Vinales’. But from lap 16, when he took the lead from him after the KTM rider made a mistake at Turn 6, Marquez’s pace shot up as he unleashed the full potential of his tyres having managed them to that point.

He reeled off successive fastest laps on the 18th and 19th tours, and was close to a second clear at the start of lap 19. Between laps 16 and 21, he was 0.311s on average quicker than Vinales and got to the chequered flag 1.8s clear before a post-race tyre penalty dumped the KTM rider down to 14th.

Pecco Bagnaia gives away golden opportunity in Qatar

The points situation isn’t dire on paper. Alex Marquez is only 17 points behind, while Bagnaia is 26. But it’s for good reason Marquez brands Qatar as “the most important weekend” of the season.

With everything working against him, his rivals still had no answer for him. Alex Marquez got involved in a second tangle in the grand prix with Di Giannantonio that left him with a long lap penalty and snapped his 100% podium streak. Bagnaia had the pace to at least challenge at the front and threw it all away with a costly Q2 crash.

At a point when his rivals could have put the pressure on him, they stepped aside as Marquez’s steamrolled his way back to the top of the standings. And the lessons learned by Ducati at Lusail look like they will only benefit Marquez more in the next races.

“For that reason it’s the most important weekend, because in Thailand I was fast, it’s a good circuit that I like,” he added. “In Austin I was fast - [I made a] big mistake. Argentina it was ok. But here, a circuit where I struggle, being on that way means a lot. So, I want to say thanks to the team. They are giving every time something. This weekend we did a step on the right corners, so this gives me breathing [room] because now we arrive in circuits with a lot of right corners.”

Unquestionably, the biggest loser from the Qatar GP was Bagnaia. But qualifying crash aside, he was still set to cede points to Marquez in the sprint. Again he blamed the feeling he has on the Ducati on the sprint fuel tank for his lacklustre run to eighth.

Bagnaia said he was “angry” that he can do what he can on Sundays but not on Saturdays. That’s something. But he also admitted it’s been years that this fuel tank issue has dogged him and yet there has been no progress in getting around it.

Ducati is pushing hard to find a solution, but when it doesn’t affect the other Ducati riders in any significant way, at what point does the brand start to lose patience with a double world champion so far not living up to that billing in the biggest sporting challenge of his life?

Sprint woes aside, Bagnaia was still 0.180s per lap slower than Marquez on average across the race distance. While Marquez’s late push saw him go 0.519s quicker per lap. Tyre life played a factory, but it’s hard to imagine a better qualifying gives Bagnaia a near-six-tenth swing in pace against his team-mate.

For all of the strong results from satellite Ducati riders and the flash of speed Vinales showed the KTM is capable of, the main challenger to Marc Marquez in the championship battle remains Bagnaia.

But even those hopes are shrinking after just four rounds. Yes, Bagnaia has come back from deficits before in the standings; he was 91 points adrift of Fabio Quartararo at the halfway point of the 2022 season. But never against a rider who has so far shown that the only rider capable of beating him to race wins is himself…