The 2025 Qatar MotoGP was won by Marc Marquez, but for much of the race, Franco Morbidelli and Maverick Vinales were in the lead. It was only during the closing stages that a resurgent Marquez took the lead and stayed there to emerge victorious. While Vinales crossed the finish line second, a tyre pressure infringement stripped him of the spot, promoting Bagnaia to second and Morbidelli to third place, again resulting in a Ducati 1-2-3 as we have seen for many of the previous races in recent times.
- Marc Marquez regains World Championship lead
- Vinales demoted to P14 due to 16-second penalty
- Jorge Martin crashes out and sustains further injuries
Marc Marquez domination resumes in Qatar
While a rare slip-up in COTA last time around meant that Marc crashed out and Bagnaia emerged victorious, the Qatar round saw Marquez return to his winning ways as he won both the Sprint and main races. An early skirmish with his younger brother Alex saw the siblings falter and be overtaken by the likes of Morbidelli, Vinales and Bagnaia, but Marc ultimately found his blisteringly fast pace to emerge victorious in Doha.
Maverick Vinales stripped of podium due to tyre pressure infringement
Marc ultimately won the race, but for quite a substantial portion of it, Vinales, who was aboard the Tech3 KTM RC 16, was unexpectedly in the lead. Vinales has had trouble adapting to the KTM, as showcased by his difficult pre-season and lacklustre results in the previous rounds, but in Qatar, the Spaniard seemed to be finding his rhythm with the orange machine.
Ultimately, the 16-second tyre pressure penalty for not being able to maintain “minimum tyre pressure for 60 percent of the race” resulted in his brilliant second-place finish being reduced to P14. This meant that Vinales finished behind every other KTM rider in the standings. Despite this, he remained optimistic and said he would “treat this result as a win”.
Jorge Martin injury woes continue after main race crash
Reigning MotoGP World Champion Jorge Martin’s 2025 season seems to be going from bad to worse as he sustained an additional six fractures to his ribs after a lowside in the main race. Martin’s title defence seems to be looking more elusive with every passing day as he is yet to score a single point (the only other rider without a point is MotoGP rookie Somkiat Chantra) due to missing races because of his horrific crashes in pre-season testing.
2025 MotoGP standings
Marc Marquez has regained the World Championship lead, and he is trailed by his brother Alex. Behind the two brothers is Marc’s teammate, Francesco Bagnaia. The next race weekend will be at Jerez in Spain on April 25-27.
2025 Qatar MotoGP results
Unnatee Gidithuri
