Five non-MotoGP riders who could steal the show in 2025

With Marc Marquez joining Francesco Bagnaia in the Ducati Lenovo Team, Pedro Acosta stepping into the factory KTM squad, and Jorge Martin joining Aprilia in 2025, there is plenty to be excited about for MotoGP this year. But what about outside of motorcycle racing’s premier class? Who is going to catch the eye elsewhere?

Toprak Razgatlioglu

Toprak Razgatlioglu’s 2024 season was, in terms of numbers, not really that impressive at all when you compare it to Alvaro Bautista’s 2023 campaign.

Where Bautista won 27 races in his second world title year, Razgatlioglu managed only 18 in his. Plus, Razgatlioglu’s final points tally in 2024 was 101 less than Bautista managed the year before.

Much of that, of course, was because of Razgatlioglu’s crash in practice at Magny-Cours in which he punctured his lung, which left him out of action for two rounds, and therefore six races.

Of the races he started, Razgatlioglu finished off the podium in three: two of those were at the first round in Phillip Island (oe of which was a terminal bike failure), and the other was a ninth place in the Assen Superpole Race where he destroyed an SCQ tyre in about three laps.

It’s easy to forget that Razgatlioglu’s title-winning 2024 was his first year on the BMW M1000 RR, a bike which hadn’t won a race in the dry ever, and which hadn’t won at all since 2021. BMW as a manufacturer had never been champion before this year, and neither had the SMR team that runs BMW’s factory effort since it joined WorldSBK from BSB in 2016.

The implication of that, of course, is that there is still room for Razgatlioglu to improve with BMW, which presumably isn’t an especially enthusing concept for anyone else lining up on a WorldSBK grid this year.

In fact, it might not be such an enticing prospect even for some fans watching at home. Razgatlioglu is unquestionably one of the most exciting riders in recent motorcycle racing history, and arguably the most exciting of all at the present moment, but people get bored of dominance.

After all, no one could reasonably argue against the idea that Marc Marquez is an exciting rider, but his dominance of MotoGP in 2014 had become relatively dull by Indianapolis.

David Alonso

The 2024 Moto3 season was a spectacular display of dominance from David Alonso. 14 wins and 15 podiums from 20 races, winning when he was the fastest as well as when he wasn’t, and generally displaying himself to have a greater racing brain than any of his competitors.

Naturally, after such a season, Alonso is moving up to Moto2 for 2025. The primary concern is his size, which seemed perfect for Moto3, but might be less suited to a bigger, heavier Moto2 machine.

Certainly, should Alonso’s size prove to be an issue, the intelligence, humility, and calmness he displayed in 2024 should be of assistance in his search for a solution.

Should Alonso’s size be not hinder his performance, the Colombian is well capable of turning a competitive package into a victory: his 18 wins so far is equal to new MotoGP World Champion Jorge Martin, and Alex Rins, and among the riders competing full-time in 2025 is fewer only than Francesco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez.

Often, the sign of a rider destined for greatness is their speed in adapting to a new motorcycle or a new category, and we will get to see how quickly Alonso — clearly the most exciting talent in the lower categories at the moment — can adapt in 2025.

Davey Todd

Davey Todd had been earmarked as a potential TT winner since at least 2022, and he finally made that a reality in 2024, winning both the second Superstock TT and the Senior TT last year.

The Englishman is not only an especially competent rider, but also quite a spectacular one.

He’s not necessarily one to wrestle the bike in quite the dramatic way of Michael Dunlop, for example, but he’s plenty capable of putting the bike sideways — often as though he’s riding a short circuit — in a way that looks perfectly controlled.

Aside from the TT, Todd will surely be the man to beat at the North West 200 this year on the big bikes, especially with Glenn Irwin having stepped away from road racing for 2025.

Plus, Todd will be back in BSB this year, having won his second National Superstock title in three seasons in 2024. The BMW might not have shown to be the most competitive package in the championship last season, but the FHO team is one which won with BMW in BSB as recently as 2023.

All in all, 2025 could see Davey Todd distinguish himself as the best all-rounder, capable of winning on the roads, and fighting it out with the best in Britain on the short circuits.

Nicolo Bulega

While Toprak Razgatlioglu distinguished himself as the best rider in WorldSBK last year, Nicolo Bulega proved himself to be the rider able to be closest to him.

While that isn’t especially exciting in itself, it was Bulega’s rookie season and one in which he had to establish himself in a factory Ducati team that had revolved around Alvaro Bautista for the previous two seasons.

A second year in the Superbike class can hardly be expected to see Bulega decline, and while Razgatlioglu will surely find improvements in his second year with BMW the Italian should not be discounted from making the 2025 season a more close-run affair than 2024.

Guido Pini

Guido Pini has been a late addition to the Moto3 World Championship grid in 2025, having announced his signature with the Intact GP team only last month.

He will partner David Munoz at Intact, another rider who came to Moto3 with a lot of promise, which he has in general failed to live up to so far.

Pini, who will not turn 17 until later this month, only raced seven times in the JuniorGP series last year, but finished second in the championship at his first attempt with three wins, two seconds, and a pair of fourth places.

The Italian is currently under the management of Emilio Alzamora, who has previously guided the careers of Alex and Marc Marquez, but is also currently recovering from his second major injury in the space of a year.

Pini’s low race mileage in 2024 was due primarily to injuries sustained in the beginning of last year which kept him out of the first three rounds of JuniorGP, and only last week the Italian youngster fractured both legs in a training accident.

All of that means it will likely be a tricky beginning to life in Grands Prix for Pini, who is also notable for his height, but he comes in with a stellar CV: he also won the European Talent Cup in 2022, and finished as runner-up in the same series the year after, finishing behind Max Quiles who, under the guidance of the aforementioned Marc Marquez, will also make his World Championship debut this year with the Aspar team.