Pramac confirming Jack Miller alongside Miguel Oliveira accomplished a 2025 MotoGP line-up headlined by Marc Marquez becoming a member of Pecco Bagnaia within the works Ducati crew – and quite a lot of massive names exiting the Ducati fold because of this.
With the grid settled, it was time to summon The Race MotoGP Podcast household – regulars Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy, Megan White and Matt Beer plus roving reporter Ollie Card, producer Jonny Reynolds and massive boss/occasional podcast supersub Glenn Freeman – to rank all 11 groups’ line-ups from worst to greatest.
The MotoGP (grand prix race) scoring system was then utilized to create our full rating:
11 LCR Honda
Johann Zarco + Somkiat Chantra
39 factors
Down one place from 2024
Highest rating: ninth (Matt)
Lowest rating: eleventh (Megan, Jonny, Glenn)
Honda’s satellite tv for pc crew changing veteran Taka Nakagami with Moto2 graduate Somkiat Chantra means LCR drops to the underside.
“Chantra can be a breath of contemporary air within the paddock, however he’ll have a really tough debut,” says Simon, whereas Ollie expects “thrilling character” Chantra’s “enigmatic smile to fade as soon as he hops onto the Honda and realises the grave scenario” and provides “a middling Moto2 season would not look like the most effective gateway to MotoGP”.
There’s loads of religion in Johann Zarco, although. “He’s the unsung hero of this season and I wager he’ll be the primary to get a Honda again on a podium one way or the other,” reckons Matt.
10 Gresini Ducati
Alex Marquez + Fermin Aldeguer
45 factors
Down 7 locations from 2024
Highest rating: eighth (Val, Megan)
Lowest rating: eleventh (Simon, Ollie)
Bringing in Marc Marquez rocketed Gresini eight locations up our rating final yr. Dropping him means almost as massive a drop in the wrong way now.
Val summarises the Marquez who’s nonetheless there (Alex) as having “plateaued a bit as a middle-of-the-road performer with low-grip peaks however doubtful tyre conservation” however a lot of this low rating is all the way down to scepticism over rookie Fermin Aldeguer – signed to a Ducati MotoGP deal on the premise of sensational 2023 Moto2 type however moderately much less sensational since then.
Glenn wonders if Ducati will “find yourself wanting too hasty” in leaping for Aldeguer, Simon reckons Ducati can be “desperately hoping it will get 2023 Aldeguer not the moderately lacklustre 2024 model” and Ollie fears a “shaky 2024 is not a superb basis for MotoGP in 2025”.
Podcast regulars won’t be stunned that Val offers the most effective Aldeguer defence.
“Aldeguer might be not so good as his Moto2 peaks however not as tough as his present Moto2 marketing campaign,” he argues. “He is a good selection for a rookie punt.”
9 Pramac Yamaha
Miguel Oliveira + Jack Miller
49 factors
Down 5 locations from 2024
Highest rating: eighth (Glenn, Matt)
Lowest rating: tenth (Megan, Jonny)
Pramac’s pair of skilled race winners “would not excite” Jonny, whereas Ollie says Jack Miller must be “extra thriller than spiller” and Miguel Oliveira must “rediscover his higher type”.
Matt appears to have unintentionally given this pair considered one of their greater rankings whereas feeling that “they’re far too inconsistent and unreliable for the very important mixture of improvement and top-team fallback that Pramac wants to supply Yamaha”.
8 Trackhouse Aprilia
Raul Fernandez + Ai Ogura
49 factors
Up 3 locations from 2024
Highest rating: eighth (Simon, Ollie, Jonny)
Lowest rating: eleventh (Matt)
Oliveira’s outdated crew is just forward of his new one on this rating on countback. There’s some pleasure about his alternative Ai Ogura – “essentially the most thrilling of the incoming rookies” in response to Glenn and “a gem” in response to Val.
There are contrasting views on Raul Fernandez – Simon feels he is now actually “stepped up” in MotoGP and Ollie’s noticed “glimmers of excellence” however Val worries the previous Moto2 sensation is perhaps “essentially restricted by present MotoGP’s qualifying-skewed calls for” and Matt is “baffled about what the information is displaying Aprilia that the precise efficiency on observe is not”, contemplating Aprilia chief Massimo Rivola’s excessive reward of Fernandez.
7 Honda
Joan Mir + Luca Marini
64 factors
Up 1 place from 2024
Highest rating: sixth (Val)
Lowest rating: seventh (Everybody else)
“How the hell do you choose anybody who has to trip a Honda?” wonders Glenn.
Properly, the remainder of us gave it a go and the vast majority of us settled on putting Joan Mir and Luca Marini seventh, summed up by Simon’s “stable however not distinctive” conclusion.
Val was the outlier, placing the pair within the giddy heights of sixth.
“Although Mir’s 2024 has largely been a disappointment in my ebook, regardless of Honda’s RC213V’s badness, I believe there are indicators he can nonetheless channel those self same Sunday smarts that had received him the 2020 title,” he declares.
“And I have been actually inspired by Marini’s progress – from admittedly a really low place to begin – on the opposite aspect of the storage.”
6 VR46 Ducati
Fabio Di Giannantonio, Franco Morbidelli
72 factors
Up 1 place from 2024
Highest rating: fifth (Simon, Val)
Lowest rating: sixth (Everybody else)
Numerous pleasure about what Fabio di Giannantonio – who this time final yr appeared set to drop proper off the MotoGP grid – will do with a 2025-spec Ducati.
“A darkish horse,” reckons Simon and Ollie can see him “portray the rostrum fluorescent”.
Ollie additionally predicts the “heat embrace of the VR46 household” will assist Franco Morbidelli again to his greatest type.
Matt’s much less satisfied: “Even with a little bit of allowance for the street bike crash that wrecked his pre-season, we’re nonetheless simply not seeing wherever close to sufficient from Morbidelli on the most effective bike on the grid proper now.”
5 Tech3 KTM
Enea Bastianini, Maverick Vinales
82 factors
Up 4 locations from 2024
Highest rating: 4th (Val, Glenn, Matt)
Lowest rating: sixth (Simon)
Ollie calls Aprilia convert Maverick Vinales and Ducati convert Enea Bastianini “crew coin toss”. “They’re properly matched when it comes to demonstrating a spectrum of driving prowess that ranges from ‘barnstorming’ to ‘MIA’,” he says.
Simon’s on an identical theme: “It’ll be attention-grabbing to see how two of the sequence’ extra delicate abilities react to the very totally different surroundings of KTM’s satellite tv for pc crew. It is perhaps that they each thrive, however proper now there’s query marks about that.”
However Val has religion: “I believe Tech3 and KTM may’ve accomplished a lot, a lot worse than usher in two riders who’re unhealthy within the early phases of races (one thing the KTM’s traits really feel uniquely suited to sort out) however fairly good at most different issues.”
Matt is “nonetheless disillusioned that we have seen so (comparatively) little of Bastianini’s greatest on a works Ducati contemplating how superior he checked out Gresini” and “solely expects Vinales to be genuinely good about twice per yr” and but “regardless of all that, on their best possible days both of those two may blow everybody else on the grid away, and that’s a tremendous factor to say a couple of Tech3 line-up”.
4 Yamaha
Fabio Quartararo, Alex Rins
91 factors
Down 3 locations from 2024
Highest rating: third (Simon, Megan)
Lowest rating: fifth (Val, Glenn, Matt)
“The 2021 world champion and the final man to take a victory for Honda. Each sensible.” – Megan feels the stats communicate for themselves in relation to Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins, and Simon calls it “a much better rider line-up than the bike deserves proper now”.
However final yr these two topped our listing, and the explanation they do not 12 months on is fully all the way down to the query marks over Rins.
“Whereas Rins has earned a stable sufficient grace interval, in some unspecified time in the future you may not subside on ‘the thought of Alex Rins’ and have to take a look at the outcomes,” says Val.
“He has not bought a transparent run in, fitness-wise, and that’s not his fault, however nor can or not it’s taken as a right that he’ll ever get again to the very good rider he was.”
third Aprilia
Jorge Martin + Marco Bezzecchi
121 factors
Up 2 locations from 2024
Highest rating: 2nd (Simon, Glenn, Matt)
Lowest rating: 4th (Megan)
What Simon calls “essentially the most fiery line-up on the grid” and one Ollie reckons is bursting with “fearlessness” misses out on second in our rating due to the various expectations of Marco Bezzecchi – such a star in 2023 however emphatically not so in 2024.
For Glenn, Jorge Martin’s degree over the past two years is so excessive he elevates the line-up even when Bezzecchi continues to flounder. Matt continues to be satisfied we’ll uncover that 2024 was the anomaly in Bezzecchi’s profession and he is again to his greatest subsequent yr.
However for Jonny and Megan, the ‘Bezz issue’ drags Aprilia’s all-new line-up down.
2 KTM
Brad Binder + Pedro Acosta
125 factors
Up 4 locations from 2024
Highest rating: 2nd (Val, Megan, Ollie, Jonny)
Lowest rating: 4th (Simon)
Properly, we undoubtedly all agree that Pedro Acosta is properly worthy of promotion into KTM’s manufacturing facility crew. “A surprising breakout season that is lived as much as the hype,” says Megan, whereas Ollie reckons Acosta has “redefined the rookie yr” and Simon declares Acosta “the title everybody needs if they cannot get Marc Marquez”.
It is Brad Binder – so lengthy “KTM’s standalone golden baby”, as Ollie places it – who’s triggered the wavering, although Megan factors out that he’s really again forward of Acosta within the championship now.
Will Binder fall into the “reliable outdated hand” function within the shadow of “ludicrously fast teen” Acosta that Jonny expects? Or will Acosta’s arrival be a “well timed sharpener” for Binder as Ollie predicts?
Val questions whether or not Binder’s really pale in any respect, stating that for those who have a look at what Augusto Fernandez and Miller have accomplished on KTMs this yr, Binder’s as spectacular as ever. However Acosta is “already higher”, Val agrees, and “that is formidable” as a mixture.
1 Ducati
Pecco Bagnaia + Marc Marquez
175 factors
Up 1 place from 2024
Highest rating: 1st (Everybody)
“If anybody hasn’t put this primary you must query what they’re doing right here,” says Glenn. And by chance, seeing as Glenn’s the one who most likely has the ability to sack us all, all of us did put Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez prime of the listing.
Having eight of the ten MotoGP champion’s crowns within the present discipline between them is tough to argue with, and it could be as much as 9 by the point they share a storage.
“This one requires no clarification. The reigning two-time world champion and one of many biggest riders MotoGP has ever seen? Yeah, this one is sweet,” concludes Megan.
However will or not it’s harmonious?
Ollie reckons Marquez can be a “hungry and assured shark who has smelled blood” given the occasions of his final yr.
“You’d hope that their two differing types ought to complement one another, however I would think about the concord will final proper up till the second Ducati’s golden son and the incoming reborn celebrity discover the identical piece of asphalt going into Flip 1. Fireworks make for a gorgeous present.”
