Marco Bezzecchi took Aprilia’s first win of the 2025 MotoGP season in the British Grand Prix, in a chaotic race that should’ve gone to Fabio Quartararo and Yamaha.
Quartararo controlled the race after a red flag restart, but suffered a technical failure while in a comfortable lead.
Leading finishers
1 Bezzecchi
2 Zarco
3 M Marquez
Full results at bottom of page
Red flag saves the Marquezes
After their 1-2 in the sprint, the Marquez brothers seemed to both be out of the race before the two-lap mark – only to both be given a second chance by a red flag interruption.
Alex had made a great launch, picking off Quartararo for the lead immediately – and then immediately tucked the front as he tucked into Abbey, his Ducati GP24 going hard into the outside barrier.
Early drama after lights out 😱@alexmarquez73 crashes out at T1 and @marcmarquez93 inherits the lead 💥💥💥#BritishGP 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/gfhOOqLEh8
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 25, 2025
With Marc having also got a good start, it left him as the leader, and as he stretched out that lead he suddenly lost the front going into Maggotts on the second lap, sliding many metres in the run-off and even hitting the padded blocks demarcating the shortcut riders need to take if they’ve gone off.
INCREDIBLE 😱@marcmarquez93 has crashed out of the lead 💥#BritishGP 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/wE7lyYhBt7
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 25, 2025
But his blushes were spared mere seconds later. On the previous lap, Honda tester Aleix Espargaro had crashed entering Vale, and his bike went into Franco Morbidelli’s VR46 Ducati, with the latter bike left lying and spewing oil down on the racing line.
CCTV footage of the Morbidelli-Espargaro incident 👀👇#BritishGP 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/7w5O0QlPKT
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 25, 2025
So just as Marquez crashed the red flag came out for track conditions – and with fewer than three laps completed, it meant that the race was reset fully and every single rider was allowed to take the restart.
Quartararo takes control…
Overtaken from pole again once the race restarted, this time by Pecco Bagnaia, Quartararo struck back immediately – and suddenly began to break away as the Ducatis that were expected to challenge him struggled.
His Yamaha squadmate Jack Miller worked his way past both Marquez brothers and Bagnaia, and in the early laps wasn’t even under major pressure from riders behind, as Quartararo established a remarkable 4.5s lead after five laps.
It was Bezzecchi, fighting through from the back end of the top 10, who finally cleared Miller into Stowe – with LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco following through around the outside of the corner, having earlier pulled off another scintillating round-the-outside Stowe move on Alex Marquez.
All four riders in the top four were at that point relative outliers, running the soft front as opposed to the conventional choice of the medium – but it was holding up remarkably well.
And even once in clean air, Bezzecchi, whose pace was so eye-catching on Saturday, seemed to have little answer to Quartararo’s speed, only making small inroads into the lead.
…then gets his heart broken
But just as he seemed en route to a certain first Yamaha win since 2022, Quartararo suffered a technical failure – seemingly a stuck ride height device – and was forced to pull over, dropping despondently to the ground once off his failed M1.
“It’s something that we never had a problem with in the last two years,” Yamaha boss Paolo Pavesio told MotoGP.com. “We are super sorry. It is motorsport, sometimes it can be very hard.”
It created an open goal for Bezzecchi, who duly took advantage of it, nursing his soft front very well until the end of the 19-lap distance to confirm his first win for Aprilia and Aprilia’s first since the Grand Prix of the Americas last year.
It was a timely pick-me-up for the manufacturer, which has had to deal with big questions over the future over its champion signing Jorge Martin coming into the weekend.
Zarco took second four seconds back, likewise coming under no pressure for the position and securing Honda’s best finish in the dry for over a year.
The podium battle
While the Zarco-won French Grand Prix at Le Mans had rain as the obvious caveat, this was a much more conventional race – and thus Ducati’s worst showing in years.
Both Marquez brothers looked out of sorts after their respective crashes, making several mistakes, with Marc nearly crashing again (this time at Becketts) – after he’d already made a big mistake at Copse, running wide in Zarco’s slipstream and dropping down to ninth.
His team-mate Bagnaia, who looked so well-positioned before the restart, did the exact same in that same moment – then crashed out while already down in 13th place.
As muted as the elder Marquez’s race was overall, he did methodically work his way past the riders in front – including brother Alex – after his error, but found himself in a close battle with Morbidelli and brother Alex for the final podium spot on the last lap.
Marc Marquez and Morbidelli traded positions several times, with the former ultimately beating the latter by 0.017s on the run to the line.
It means Marc and Alex are now 24 points apart in the standings, with Bagnaia another 72 back, his championship hopes appearing to be in tatters after just seven rounds.
Rest of the top 10
Pedro Acosta salvaged a sixth place from a gloomy weekend of MotoGP action for KTM, followed by Miller and Honda’s Luca Marini.
But Marini is unlikely to keep that eighth place, given he has been placed under investigation for a potential tyre pressure infringement – and risks a 16-second penalty that would relegate him to 15th.
Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) and Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) completed the top 10, underlining a relatively difficult day for the Bologna firm.
Three other riders were placed under investigation for tyre pressures, but all three – Enea Bastianini, Lorenzo Savadori and Somkiat Chantra – finished out of the points.
One post-race penalty has already been applied, with Brad Binder being moved behind Alex Rins for a track limits infringement in the battle for 14th.
Results
1 Marzo Bezzecchi (Aprilia)
2 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) +4.088s
3 Marc Marquez (Ducati) +5.929s
4 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) +5.946s
5 Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) +6.024s
6 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +7.109s
7 Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha) +7.398s
8 Luca Marini (Honda) +7.729s
9 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) +8.584s
10 Fabio di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) +9.764s
11 Joan Mir (Honda) +10.320s
12 Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM) +11.318s
13 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) +16.175s
14 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +16.312s
15 Brad Binder (KTM) +16.262s (1 place penalty)
16 Miguel Oliveira (Pramac Yamaha) +31.641s
17 Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM) +38.225s
18 Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) +40.488s
19 Somkiat Chantra (LCR Honda) +48.884s
DNF Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha)
DNF Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati)
DNF Aleix Espargaro (Honda)
DNS Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia)
