A resurgent Pecco Bagnaia dominated the Japanese Grand Prix MotoGP sprint at Motegi, as Marc Marquez drew closer to the 2025 title.
Bagnaia had finished no higher than third in any sprint in 2025 - and had scored no Saturday points at all since Brno in July - coming into the Motegi contest, but was in full control from pole position here, coming under no real threat from his rivals. It is only the second race win of any kind for the double champion this year, the other one having come way back at the end of March in the Grand Prix of the Americas at Austin.
Honda rider Joan Mir was a help in the early stages, keeping the biggest threats to Bagnaia back - but when KTM's Pedro Acosta cleared Mir into Turn 5, he could make no progress towards Bagnaia's lead.
Acosta had cleared Marquez round the outside of Turn 3 on the opening lap, and over the next few laps Marquez tried a couple of times to get past former team-mate Mir - but he went wide lunging into Turn 5 and then Turn 10, with Mir reclaiming the place on both occasions.
Shortly past the halfway point, Bagnaia's lead ticked over two seconds, with Acosta dropping towards Mir and Marquez instead. On lap eight of 12, Marquez finally made a move on Mir stick, by running the Honda rider very wide at Turn 10.
He then eased past a fading Acosta two laps later, but never had any chance of overhauling the gap to Bagnaia, settling for second.
Acosta completed the podium ahead of Mir and Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati), while Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo fought off race-long pressure from Honda's Luca Marini to claim sixth place.
Alex Marquez's sprint didn't work out at all, Marquez getting bottled up behind Raul Fernandez's Trackhouse Aprilia early on, then making a mistake to let the other Trackhouse bike of Ai Ogura through - with Fernandez and Ogura picking up the final available points instead of him.
It means Alex now needs to outscore brother Marc by seven points on Sunday to delay his coronation.
There was a big mid-pack collision at the start of the race as Jorge Martin went to the inside, was squeezed by Fermin Aldeguer and Jack Miller and got his entry into Turn 1 completely wrong - barrelling into Aprilia team-mate Marco Bezzecchi, both out of the race on the spot.
LIGHTS OUT in the #TissotSprint 🚥@PeccoBagnaia nails the start as @88jorgemartin and Bezzecchi are out at the first corner 😱#JapaneseGP 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/Q9d9z35wMY
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 27, 2025
Johann Zarco and Alex Rins also had their sprints compromised by the incident.
Zarco was one of two riders to later retire without crashing, the other being Tech3 KTM's Enea Bastianini, whose RC16 expired to continue KTM's worrying recent reliability streak.
Miller ran 11th when he crashed out on the final lap.
Results
1 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati)
2 Marc Marquez (Ducati) +1.842s
3 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +3.674s
4 Joan Mir (Honda) +4.300s
5 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) +5.130s
6 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) +8.913s
7 Luca Marini (Honda) +9.102s
8 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) +10.334s
9 Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) +10.480s
10 Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) +11.487s
11 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) +13.492s
12 Brad Binder (KTM) +13.823s
13 Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) +15.425s
14 Taka Nakagami (Honda) +16.352s
15 Miguel Oliveira (Pramac Yamaha) +18.211s
16 Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM) +20.706s
17 Somkiat Chantra (LCR Honda) +21.883s
18 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +43.428s
DNF Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha)
DNF Johann Zarco (LCR Honda)
DNF Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM)
DNF Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia)
DNF Jorge Martin (Aprilia)
