The MotoGP field’s spent most of 2025 being crushed by Marc Marquez. But he’s not even going to be on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix, the first of at least two rounds he’ll miss with the injury he sustained when hit by Marco Bezzecchi on the first lap in Indonesia.
Given form in the second half of the season, with Marquez sidelined it would probably be Bezzecchi who you’d expect to set the pace. But the Aprilia rider has a double long-lap penalty for taking Marquez out at Mandalika, so while he’s a strong favourite for Phillip Island sprint victory, it will be a very tall order for Bezzecchi to win the Australian GP.
So who does become favourite to win?
Here are our picks:
Fermin Aldeguer
The last MotoGP rookie to win back-to-back races was Marc Marquez… Fermin Aldeguer has an above-average chance of repeating that feat.
Phillip Island winner in Moto2 last year, bursting with confidence about this track all season long even before he won last time out, and on a well-sorted bike that should be a lot of fun to ride around here, he doesn’t exactly face an open goal but he certainly has a very, very good shot at more success.
It’s a track that should suit his riding style, and provide an answer on whether his Mandalika form was the sign of a tangible breakthrough that’ll stick or just him handling the harder-carcass rear Michelin tyre better than most. The evidence for a breakthrough is that Indonesia was the first time all season Aldeguer really put full focus on qualifying pace as well as race pace. But it also seems significant that Indonesia was his first appearance right at the front since Austria in August - the last time a harder-construction tyre was used.
Another win, or coming close to one, would be a strong question and accelerate Aldeguer’s rise even further. As a race-winning rookie, he can probably get away with having a stumble this time, but it might imply a bit of weakness under pressure of expectation - though again, as a 20-year-old rookie that can probably be shrugged off at this stage.
Alex Marquez
By far the most consistent runner-up to brother Marc in 2025, having finished second to his brother an incredible 15 times across sprints and GPs this year, you’d presume that it’s Alex Marquez who is best placed to benefit from his elder sibling’s absence.
Times finishing runner-up to Marc Marquez in 2015
Alex Marquez - 15
Marco Bezzecchi - 4
Pedro Acosta - 2
Pecco Bagnaia - 1
Fermin Aldeguer - 1
Fabio Di Giannantonio - 1
Fabio Quartararo - 1
Yet, that’s not quite the case given that Alex’s own Phillip Island record isn’t exactly exemplary and that his momentum has fallen off a little bit in recent rounds.
Injured in 2024, involved in contact with Jack Miller in 2023, and a crasher on his only other MotoGP appearance there in 2022, Marquez is not exactly a favourite for this weekend (a status that, admittedly, will be very different next time out at Sepang).
However, he’s a scrappy rider and on the best form of his career in 2025, and those two things combined could well mean that he’s in the battle for the win on Sunday should circumstances fall in his favour.
Pecco Bagnaia
Going into this season you’d have assumed that any time Marc Marquez was missing from a race, Pecco Bagnaia would be the favourite to win it.
However pre-season now seems a very, very, very long time ago for Bagnaia in particular so that logic no longer holds.
Based on the last two rounds, Marquez’s absence might make zero difference to Bagnaia’s actual results. At Motegi he had Marquez well-beaten, albeit on the weekend Marc’s focus was mainly on sealing the title. At Mandalika, Bagnaia was so far off the pace he needed most of the field to be sidelined to have any chance of being near the front.
He strongly denied on Thursday that his 2025 problems have anything to do with Ducati’s focus gravitating towards Marquez.
“I think in Motegi everyone was focused on Marc for the title but I won the races,” Bagnaia argued.
“Honestly I don’t think it’s a matter of focus on me. It’s a matter of how the bike is going. Because the same bike in Motegi was working super-well, and the week after it was not working well. This is the thing that we need to understand.”
But having the Ducati garage effectively to himself this weekend, with test rider Michele Pirro on Marquez’s bike, could pay longer-term dividends for Bagnaia.
With the crucial post-Valencia test that kicks off the 2026 season only a month away, any additional influence Bagnaia can have, any extra evidence he can of what he can achieve when the bike does what he wants it to, might just make a big difference for next year.
That’s the potential upside. The reverse of that would be even more significant - if the factory Ducati team is an also-ran without Marquez, then it has to be very bad news for Bagnaia and Ducati’s long-term relationship.
Fabio Quartararo
In Fabio Quartararo’s own words on Thursday at Phillip Island, the 2025 Yamaha M1 is a ‘chef’s surprise’ - a bike where you never quite know what you’re going to get until you’re on track with it. And, with that in mind, he’s not prepared just yet to make any predictions about whether he’s got realistic chances of success this weekend.
But, with Phillip Island serving up not only the sort of fast corners that Yamaha’s bike traditionally works well at but also low temperatures and good grip, there’s certainly shades of Silverstone’s almost-success in how Quartararo goes into this weekend.
The good thing for Yamaha of late, too, is that should the 2021 world champion be fast, it’s highly likely that at least some of the rest of its quartet will be, too. It’s Jack Miller’s home race, Alex Rins is coming off his best result in months, and Miguel Oliveira (finally with his 2026 employment sorted) is riding better than he has all season with the pressure off.
Perhaps expecting a return to winning ways for any of them is unlikely, but it wouldn’t be a huge shock to see Quartararo beating the M1 into submission and sneaking a cheeky podium surge on Sunday.
Pedro Acosta
It would be great for the rising stars, next generation of greats, rivalry narrative if Aldeguer’s breakthrough first win was immediately followed by Pedro Acosta’s first win - especially after Acosta finished second to his potential future arch-rival in Indonesia.
Though you’d expect someone of Acosta’s vast talent to have a great Phillip Island record, he actually barely has a Phillip Island record at all. Second there in his rookie Moto2 season is the peak, crashing on the sighting lap in the mad 2023 conditions and ruling himself out of last year’s GP with a heavy crash from 11th in the sprint are deep troughs.
Australia 2024 was a generally poor KTM weekend, though. And as usual with this team’s traditionally unpredictable form, that probably says absolutely nothing about its 2025 Australia prospects.
It’s increasingly strange (and frustrating) that Acosta still hasn’t actually won a MotoGP race despite. Putting that right here would be a neat story.
Johann Zarco
Obviously, there’s history when it comes to Johann Zarco and Phillip Island. The scene of his long-overdue maiden victory in 2023, it’s a track where the Frenchman has always gone well - and 2025 may well represent another chance for him given that Honda’s resurgent form has arrived at just the right time.
Most of the attention of late has been on the factory duo of Luca Marini and Joan Mir (both of whom could also be dark horses this weekend), but that’s been in large part because of new parts arriving first to their side of the garage and making an immediate difference to the RC213V.
Satellite LCR rider Zarco is, now, on the same machinery but had admittedly taken some time to adapt to it, a process that finally seems to be coming to an end just as he arrives at one of his favoured circuits.
If he is now as comfortable on the upgraded Honda as Mir and Marini, it’s not at all impossible to imagine him being in the fight with the leaders again at Phillip Island.
