The Dutch TT marked the conclusion of the tenth round of this year’s MotoGP Championship which means we’re just one round away from the halfway point of the season. That also means there’s still more than 400 points available, but it looks like there’ll be no stopping Marc Marquez and Ducati this year.
Marquez continues to dominate
For the third GP in a row, Marquez won both the Sprint and feature races at Assen to make that six rounds out of the ten to take place so far where he’s achieved that feat. And he’s won 15 of the 20 races to take place, statistics that make for ominous reading for the opposition.
That dominance has given him a 68-point lead over brother Alex whose challenge took a knock at Assen with a second race spill leaving him with a broken bone in his hand. He probably won’t be 100% fit for the next round in Germany, a venue where Marc’s success rate is second to none.
Marc continues to defy the odds, bouncing back from two practice crashes at Assen – both at more than 100mph – which almost put paid to his sequence of wins. But he dug deep and whilst not always the fastest around the 2.82-mile circuit, he rode the smartest, quickly realising and understanding where his strengths and weaknesses were, maximising the former and limiting the latter.
That meant neither Alex in the Sprint race or Marco Bezzecchi in the feature GP were able to get close enough to make a pass and it was another masterclass for Marc. The victory saw him equal Giacomo Agostini’s tally of 68 wins in the premier class and one more podium will see him equal the Italian’s haul of 159 podiums across the Grand Prix classes.
The records continue to be broken by Marquez and when you consider he’s scored 66 more points than eventual champion Jorge Martin had scored at this stage of last season and 56 more than Francesco Bagnaia the year before, it only serves to ram home his dominance. And with success coming recently at Mugello and Assen, two of his supposedly weaker tracks, surely the writing’s on the wall for the destination of the 2025 crown?
Bagnaia still searching for top form
It’s no exaggeration to say Marc Marquez has convincingly outperformed team-mate Bagnaia this year, the gap between the two after ten rounds a staggering 126 points. That’s surely an insurmountable gap to bridge even if Bagnaia is a two-time MotoGP World Champion.
Recent rounds have followed a similar pattern, Bagnaia quick over one lap in qualifying and in the early laps of the race before fading. The drop off in pace at Mugello, a track where he dominated between 2022 and 2024, was almost staggering as he went from a challenging third to a distant fourth.
Assen was another of his strong circuits, also taking three straight wins there, but the narrative was similar. He out qualified Marquez and started strongly in each race but fourth in the Sprint was followed by third in the feature race and he continued to bemoan his lack of front-end grip and feel.
“I’m struggling in braking-entry with this bike, and this track is only braking-entry, because the corners are really fast,” he explained. “I cannot stop the bike when and where I want. I go a bit wide, then I’m not in the perfect place to accelerate.”
The positives were that he didn’t fade as much as what he did in Mugello, in the feature race at least, but Mugello and Assen were supposedly two of the circuits where he’d perform better than Marquez, just like Jerez and Qatar. With only one victory to his name so far, when Marquez crashed in America, it’s hard to see when or where Bagnaia’s next one will come.
Bezzechi shows Aprilia competitiveness
With reigning World Champion Martin still absent as he strives to get back to full fitness, almost all of Aprilia’s responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of Bezzechi and the Italian has not only been showing he’s up to the task, but he’s also showing just how strong the Aprilia is.
Since the British round in late May, which he won, he’s been an almost ever-present in the top six and after two top six finishes at his home GP of Mugello, he took the fight firmly to Ducati at Assen with second and third in the feature and Sprint races respectively.
The lack of a truly competitive team-mate cannot be underestimated and flying the flag single handedly is no mean task, but Bezzechi has stepped up to the plate. But it’s also worth pointing out the role of stand-in team-mate and test rider Lorenzo Savadori.
The Italian is regularly towards the bottom of the timesheets and results but he’s the guinea pig for testing any new developments and at Assen, the new aero package he used in practice was ultimately passed over to Bezzechi’s bike for the races. Test riders normally carry out their work away from a GP weekend but having the opportunity to test new components, against the opposition is paying dividends.
And whilst Martin seems desperate to get out of the contract he’s signed, perhaps he shouldn’t be too hasty and focus instead on the work Bezzechi and Savadori are doing and realise he’s got a quality, competitive package at his disposal when he finally returns.
Acosta and Vinales give KTM hope
It hasn’t been the easiest of seasons for KTM, but recent rounds have seen some good showings by the Austrian manufacturer at least by Pedro Acosta and Maverick Vinales. The other two riders, Enea Bastianini and Brad Binder, especially, are a long way off where they need and should be, but the two Spaniards have certainly been competitive of late.
Much was expected of Acosta coming into his second season in MotoGP, but he’s only been able to show glimpses of his talent, often finding himself at the bottom, and wrong, end of the top ten. Crashes have been frequent and podiums non-existent but both Aragon and Assen produced top four finishes, the latter being his best ride of the season.
Like his contemporaries, Acosta has been suffering with chatter/vibration from the KTM with the crashes often coming as he’s been both over-riding the bike and become frustrated with not being able to ride and perform like he knows he can. Time will tell if Assen was a one-off or if he’s turned the corner.
Vinales has been KTM’s shining light even if the results don’t show it and he’s been their best performer without question. His pace has been clear ever since he ‘finished’ second at Qatar where he was ultimately relegated down the order after falling foul to the controversial tyre pressure ruling. Luck has deserted him though, especially at Mugello when Franco Morbidelli punted him into the gravel trap when he was lying fourth, but Assen saw him rewarded with two top five finishes.
He still needs to improve in qualifying though and particularly in the opening laps of the race when he’s not aggressive enough and allows himself to get shuffled down the order. If he can improve these two areas, podiums will come his way.
Frustration for Quartararo
One rider who has no issues in qualifying is Fabio Quartararo, the Frenchman taking his fourth pole position of the season at Assen. But it’s the races where he’s continuing to suffer and nowhere was this seen more than in Holland where pole was followed by tenth and a DNF.
Of the 20 races to take place so far, the Frenchman has only finished in the top six on four occasions and his patience with Yamaha is clearly beginning to wear a bit thin.
The YZF M1 clearly has the pace over one lap and when running in clean air but when it’s in traffic, Quartararo can’t run the lines he wants, and his speed and the strengths of the Yamaha are subsequently compromised. And when he gets overtaken, he’s almost powerless to respond.
His rivals continue to doff their cap to him for his qualifying performances, especially when you look at where the other Yamaha riders are in comparison, but it’s the races that count. Sadly, there looks to be no immediate turnaround and Yamaha need better riders on their three other machines if they’re to get back to the front.
Signing WBS star Toprak Razgatlioglu for 2026 signals their intent, as does their V4 that’s waiting in the wings, but he’ll need time to adapt and that might not be enough time to make Quartararo stick around. It’s clear Yamaha need to make strides forward and quickly if they’re to retain their prize asset.
Honda optimism fading?
Like Yamaha, Honda’s early optimism seems to be fading. And if you take out Johann Zarco’s superb victory at home in France and second place at Silverstone two weeks later, there hasn’t been an awful lot to write home about.
True, they’re better than where they were but top ten finishes are still a rarity rather than the norm and their cause hasn’t been aided by Luca Marini missing races due to injury sustained whilst testing for the Suzuka 8-Hour in Japan.
Zarco has found the going tough lately, failing to finish in the top ten since his Le Mans and Silverstone heroics and whilst HRC’s Joan Mir clearly has the talent, the 2020 World Champion has found luck in scarce supply. A season’s best seventh at Aragon was offset by two DNF’s at Assen, the second coming when Fermin Aldeguer crashed in front of him leaving him with nowhere to go. He’s also been guilty, perhaps understandably, of over-riding the bike.
The test team of Aleix Espargaro and Takaaki Nakagami haven’t been able to advance the RCV as much as anyone would have liked and its little wonder that rumours continue to persist about Jorge Martin’s potential new home in 2026 being Honda.
Having started watching motorcycle races all over the world form childhood, Phil Wain has been a freelance motorcycle journalist for almost 20 years and is features writer for a number of publications including BikeSport News, Classic Racer and Road Racing Ireland, as well as being a regular contributor to MCN and MCN Sport.
He is PR officer for a number of teams and riders at both the British Superbike Championship and International road races, including PBM Ducati, John McGuinness, KTS Racing and Jackson Racing. He is also heavily involved with the Isle of Man TT Races working with the race organisation, writing official press releases and race reports as well as providing the TV and radio broadcasting teams with statistical information.