How a smarter Pecco Bagnaia bested a faster Marc Marquez in dramatic COTA MotoGP

Just when you think you know what’s going to happen, the universe throws a little rain into the mix just to keep things interesting.

Having won the sprint after a stunning lap one battle with Pecco Bagnaia, and almost crashing in the process, Marc Marquez’s 100% victory record in MotoGP 2025 looked like it would continue with ease in Sunday’s 20-lap grand prix.

A pre-race shower turned everything on its head, however. Seconds before the warm-up lap, Marquez triggered an exodus from the grid as he ran to pitlane to get his dry bike. A handful of riders - including eventual race winner Bagnaia - followed him. Other stayed put on a mix of wets and slicks. Penalties likely should have been called for the deserters, but so much chaos ensued that race direction intervened and delayed the start on safety grounds.

When the race got underway properly, Marquez grabbed the holeshot and was already a second clear of the field as he tripped the timing beam to start lap two. At the end of lap eight, he was 2.287s up the road from Bagnaia having just reeled off three successive race fastest laps, and win number eight at COTA was well on its way.

Then at Turn 4 he took too much kerb and dropped his factory Ducati. The bike clattered the kerb over at Turn 5 and ripped up part of the fairing, as well as detaching a foot peg. Marquez rejoined, but retired on lap 13. Bagnaia inherited a lead of 1.316s and didn’t look back.

The chequered flag couldn’t have been a more welcome sight for a rider under a hailstorm of flak following his lacklustre start to the 2025 campaign, and now suddenly the championship picture has taken a different look heading to Qatar.

How Marquez prompted Bagnaia into race-winning caution

Leaving Argentina telling the media he was thinking about switching back to the GP24 from Austin, Bagnaia backtracked on those comments during this Americas GP weekend. Spending Friday looking for the braking feeling he’s been missing since he ditched his GP24 at the end of last year, he said he found something.

But his weekend still very much looked like a damage limitation job after qualifying, when he was sixth on the grid and fifth of the six Ducatis. His rapid start to the sprint was a welcome change to what he had shown previously in 2025, but he quickly reverted to type as he slid off the back of the Marquez brothers.

Coming into Sunday 36 points adrift of Ducati team-mate Marc Marquez, he was seriously at risk of that gap swelling to over 40. While confident he could fight Alex Marquez, he knew Marc was out of reach.

“I’m super happy,” he said. “And I want to dedicate it to my team, because they are the ones who deserve this victory more. They are there, working always, keeping my nerves [at bay] and just trying to translate [what I need] in a technical way. So, they are doing an incredible job like always and they were always pushing to make me happy again on the bike.

“And today I was happy riding. It’s true that Marc was faster. I was the second-fastest today and as soon as I saw him crashing I just said to myself ‘ok, I have to push the same, I want to open the gap to Alex’ and the strategy was quite clear. 

"I’m really happy, even if it’s not one of my best tracks because it’s my first win here, I’m super happy. The feeling was fantastic and this is the way we have to continue working. I know it’s not finished yet because I have to do another step, but we did a step in front.”

Marc Marquez’s pace on average was 0.118s a lap quicker than Bagnaia’s, which over a full race distance at COTA equates to a 2.242s winning gap. That was where Marc Marquez had gotten to at the start of lap nine before his crash, but Bagnaia’s pace got better as the race wore on. So, it’s likely that hypothetical winning margin wouldn’t have gotten too much bigger - though this would also have been because Marquez would have undoubtedly backed off at some stage.

Assume the race went to plan and finished with Marquez a little over two seconds up the road from Bagnaia, there would have still be solace to take from that. With an improved feeling on his bike, Bagnaia was able to halve the deficit he had to Marquez in Argentina, while it is significantly smaller than the near-10 seconds he was set to lose by in Thailand had his team-mate not needed to manage his tyre pressures.

Had it finished a factory Ducati 1-2, Marquez would be 41 points clear of Bagnaia. As it happened, that advantage is now only 11 points, while Alex Marquez - second in the grand prix - has assumed the lead of the standings by a point over his older brother.

While it would be easy to brush off Bagnaia’s win at COTA as fortunate, that would belie the intelligence that went into it. Prior to the race, Bagnaia wasn’t aware of Marquez’s plans to bolt from the grid - but he was smart enough to know that when his team-mate did, he needed to follow.

“I wasn’t knowing his strategy, but I saw he wasn’t on the bike - he wasn’t seated,” he explained. “So, I was thinking to do the same because the starting grid was completely dry, and also the first corner was dry. So, I said if I start in this situation I will lose too much time. As soon as I saw him doing it I just followed it. Normally he’s very sneaky in these situations, and it was the correct one.”

Then in the race, Bagnaia could see that Marquez was taking the kerbs aggressively and didn’t want to follow suit given the fact they’d likely be slick from the earlier rain. While it wouldn’t be fair to suggest that Bagnaia foresaw Marquez’s fall, his team-mate certainly gave him enough to think about in terms of risk over reward.

“I was seeing that he was very aggressive on the kerbs,” Bagnaia said of Marquez’s crash. “I wasn’t using it that much because I was quite scared of some slippery kerbs. So, I was avoiding them. And as soon as I saw him crashing there, I just tried to keep going like this because I was seeing that Alex was still close to me. The maximum thing was to win today, so I just tried to keep in the same way.”

Is the pressure now off Pecco Bagnaia in 2025?

What’s clear after the Americas GP is that Bagnaia and Ducati have clearly found something with the GP25 that has made him happier. When Marc Marquez is in the form that he is, Bagnaia at the very least has to be second. At COTA, he was comfortably second-best, with his pace up to the point of Marc Marquez’s crash 0.154s per lap faster than Alex Marquez behind him.

At no point in 2025 before last Sunday had we seen Bagnaia be a genuine match for Alex Marquez on the Gresini-run GP24, let alone be faster than him.

Over the entire race distance, Bagnaia was on average 0.134s per lap faster than Alex Marquez - and that actually swells to 0.197s per lap if you remove the unrepresentative 2m04s final lap where he celebrated out of the last corner for Bagnaia.

“I think Pecco knew he’s going to be able to find the speed and the pace, he’s just not confident yet on that bike,” 1993 500cc world champion Kevin Schwantz said after the race. 

“They seem to have made some adjustments. I’ve been noticing that I think the Ducati isn’t quite finishing the corner the way it needs to for him. It looks like he’s having to drive the thing out to the pain and still finish the turn, instead of at the apex having the turn finished and then drive the bike to the edge of the track. It looked like the bike was doing more what he wanted it to today, and he definitely has the speed to get passed Alex and put a little bit of distance on him.”

Some have suggested Bagnaia’s improved speed pressured Marc Marquez into his crash. Given the pace the eight-time world champion had and the gap, that’s unlikely. For his part, Marquez said it was a simple mistake borne out of having the confidence to ride like he wanted.

But certainly, heading to Qatar, there is more pressure on Marquez now. His championship buffer is gone, so another mistake anytime soon will have major consequences. And Bagnaia now looks like he is in a position to at least capitalise in this scenario.