Winners and losers from the MotoGP Indonesian Grand Prix

The 2025 Indonesian Grand Prix will be remembered for a long time, for reasons both good and bad. First, a rookie who had shown so much promise over the season was finally able to score his maiden win - and in commanding fashion. Then, the race itself delivered so much action to the point you could have mistaken it for a Moto3 contest.

However, all that drama and excitement was partly overshadowed by the crash between Marc Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi that left the former with a fracture on his shoulder. In fact, while the factory Ducati team arrived in Mandalika still hungover from Marquez’s championship success, it left in a rather despondent state after recording its first double DNF of 2025.

Winner: Fermin Aldeguer (and Gresini)

Fermin Aldeguer, Gresini Racing

Fermin Aldeguer had already demonstrated his sheer speed on more than one occasion this season, but the way he dominated Sunday’s race cemented his status as the standout rookie of 2025.

Apart from a crash in FP1, Aldeguer did not put a foot wrong all weekend, and was the fastest Ducati rider by a country mile. His team-mate Alex Marquez tried to copy his lines on Saturday but ended up crashing twice, including in the final moments of qualifying. While his Ducati peers struggled with the new, stiffer rear carcass at Mandalika, Aldeguer’s riding style allowed him to make the most out of Michelin’s rear tyre in low-grip conditions. 

On Saturday, he resisted the advances of a recovering Bezzecchi and put up a tough fight, despite the deficit his GP24 faced to the Aprilia. In the grand prix, he bided his time behind Pedro Acosta, before making the race-winning pass at Turn 10, the same corner where he had lost the sprint to Bezzecchi a day earlier. Pulling out a lead of more than nine seconds at one stage, he became the second youngest race winner in MotoGP behind a certain Marc Marquez.

Credit should also be given to Gresini for saving Ducati’s face on a weekend in which its factory team had no pace to fight near the front. Aldeguer believes the ‘tools’ Gresini had at disposal allowed it to better exploit the unique conditions at Mandalika, a remarkable achievement for a satellite team that has a fraction of the resources of a full-scale manufacturer entry.

Loser: Marc Marquez

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team

For all of Marc Marquez’s optimism about finally turning around his fortunes in Mandalika and chasing a first podium there, the Indonesian weekend could hardly have gone worse for the newly-crowned 2025 MotoGP champion.

Things were already looking difficult for him on Friday when he crashed twice in practice and was forced into Q1. There was still a glimmer of hope as Ducati has a history of making big overnight gains after practice, but qualifying made it clear he genuinely had no chance to fight for the win as he could only manage ninth on the grid.

In the sprint race, he paid a big price for a relatively small error, picking up a long lap penalty for forcing Alex Rins off the track. To his credit, Marquez did recover to sixth after dropping as low as 13th, but it was still not the kind of result he was looking for going into the weekend.

The sprint would turn out to be the high point of his weekend, as disaster struck just a few corners into the start of Sunday’s race in Mandalika, when Bezzecchi got it all wrong at Turn 7.

Marquez was visibly in pain after the accident, with tests revealing that he had suffered a fracture to his shoulder. A full diagnosis won’t be complete until he returns to Spain, but the fact that he broke a bone just a week after completing his heroic comeback from injury must sting for the nine-time world champion.

Winner: Pedro Acosta

Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

For a rider who has come under flak for failing to score a single win after almost two seasons in MotoGP, Acosta showed he can outperform his bike and score a big result when it matters in the Indonesian GP. 

The KTM was fast but not fast enough to finish second on merit. Not when there was still an Aprilia in the race after Bezzecchi’s first-lap exit. But Acosta was smart enough to play the long game after he realised victory was out of his reach on lap 8.

As Aldeguer disappeared into the sunset, Acosta cleverly backed the rest of the field, ensuring he had enough advantage left on his medium front. This meant that every time Luca Marini made a move on him, he was able to fight back and reclaim second position. His decision to slow down the pace also did wonders as it brought Raul Fernandez back into play, leading to the clash that eliminated both Fernandez and Marini from podium contention. 

The fact that he set his fastest lap on lap 24 of 27 showed how impressive a job he did at both managing tyre wear and tyre pressures in the race, and allowed him to repass the Gresini of Alex Marquez to finish runner-up behind Aldeguer.

With Aprilia squandering a likely victory, KTM’s young gun was there to capitalise on its rival’s slip-up, and help the Austrian marque close the gap to second in the championship.

Loser: Francesco Bagnaia and Ducati

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

As if Marquez’s troubles weren’t enough, Francesco Bagnaia also endured a miserable weekend on the other side of the garage. Just a week after dominating in Japan, Bagnaia hit a new low in Mandalika, not something many thought was possible given how severe his struggles had been prior to the Misano test.

Bagnaia’s problems began even before he had rolled out of the pitlane in first practice, as rumours started circulating that he had ridden Franco Morbidelli’s GP24 bike - possibly with a 2025-spec engine - in that Misano test prior to Japan. Ducati continued to deny these claims, even after VR46 boss Uccio Salucci admitted to lending Morbidelli’s bike to Bagnaia on the world feed. More worryingly, it left Bagnaia in a difficult position, forced to face persistent questions about the bike he was testing - without being allowed by Ducati to respond.

In qualifying, Bagnaia struggled to 16th place, but that wasn’t entirely shocking as he had been in that position previously. What was really baffling was his lack of speed in race trim, as he routinely lapped more than two seconds off the pace in the sprint. Sunday appeared more of the same until he went down at Turn 17 a third of the way into the race. 

Bagnaia ended up skipping his post-race media duties afterwards, with Ducati only stating that this was a “consequence” of his crash. However, with Tardozzi later stating that Ducati now has to “protect” a “sensitive” and “devastated” Bagnaia, it’s fair to say that the actual reasons behind his absence were different.

Winner: Brad Binder

Brad Binder, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Brad Binder has had a horrible year by his lofty standards in MotoGP and had yet to break inside the top five heading into the Mandalika round. It didn’t look like this weekend was going to be any better, as all KTMs other than Acosta struggled, and he qualified 15th among 20 riders. The sprint showed no signs of encouragement either, as he could only recover to 10th, finishing 13 seconds behind race winner Marco Bezzecchi.

However, a set-up change in the warm-up transformed his fortunes, giving him the confidence he needed on the front end of the bike. Amid drama at the start, he leapt to eighth in the opening two laps, putting himself in a solid position for the remainder of the race.

Until about the halfway point, he remained in the same position to preserve the tyres for a final push. This strategy paid dividends as he rapidly started picking off riders in the final 10 laps, passing the likes of Fabio Quartararo, Rins and most impressively Raul Fernandez to grab fourth.

The fact that Binder largely kept pace with Alex Marquez in the final laps was also an impressive feat, and should boost his confidence as he prepares for the final four rounds of a gruelling 2025 season.

Loser: Aprilia and Marco Bezzecchi

Raul Fernandez, Trackhouse Racing, Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing

This should have been Aprilia’s biggest race weekend of 2025. Even though it had already won a grand prix and a sprint before this season, Indonesia was its golden opportunity to dominate a MotoGP race like no manufacturer other than Ducati has done in recent years. 

But even before the start of the race week, Aprilia was reduced to half its strength, as Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura joined Jorge Martin in withdrawing from Mandalika due to injuries.  Still, the form Bezzecchi showed on Saturday would have made Aprilia forget all about it, as he took pole by a staggering four tenths. He did fumble at the start in the sprint - for reasons yet to be disclosed - but his comeback victory made it one of the most entertaining races of 2025. Even Fernandez rose to the occasion and finished third, scoring his first podium in any format in MotoGP.

However, it all slipped through Aprilia’s grasp on Sunday. Bezzecchi made another poor launch from pole and - as Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola himself admitted - was overeager in making up the lost ground. The poorly-judged move at Turn 7 not only ended his race, but unfortunately left Marquez with a broken shoulder as well. 

It was a rare lapse of judgment from one of the most impressive riders of 2025, but he wasn’t the only one who paid the price as Aprilia also lost out on a likely win. The fact that Fernandez wasn’t there to pick up the pieces on Sunday must have caused further frustration to the Noale marque.

Winner: Alex Rins

Alex Rins, Yamaha Factory Racing

Including Rins in the winners’ column may seem illogical given he was 10th out of 14 finishers on Sunday, but that would be to overlook the morale boost he gained by running near the front all weekend.

Quicker than his Yamaha peers from the very first practice session, Rins put together a brilliant lap in Q2 to secure his best qualifying result since the 2023 Americas GP (which he won) in fourth. 

It was quite telling that Rins was still smiling after finishing 12th in the sprint, even though he was initially “angry” with Marc Marquez for running him wide on the opening lap and dropping him outside the points.

On Sunday, he pulled off the move of the race, passing both Fernandez and Marini in one go at Turn 17 when they tripped over each other. At this point of the race, he should have hit the brakes to conserve his soft rear tyre - Yamaha couldn’t get the medium rubber up to work - but he went on the offensive and passed Acosta for second place soon after.

This strategy backfired as a major tyre drop off with five laps remaining left him tumbling down the order. But for a rider who has struggled so much since his move to Yamaha - both due to a lack of competitiveness and injuries - just being able to run in podium positions was a significant step in itself.

Loser: Honda

Joan Mir, Honda HRC

For the second weekend in a row, Honda had a bike capable of finishing on the podium. It also had two factory riders who have put their past struggles behind them to make the same progress that Honda itself has made with the RC213V. But fifth place was all it could muster at the end of a weekend in which it grossly underperformed.

First, the Sakura-based manufacturer lost some speed in relation to its rivals after Friday practice, which meant that Marini could only go sixth-quickest in qualifying on the best-placed RC213V. Mir, fresh off the podium in Japan, languished in 12th after running into some issues in qualifying, including yellow flags caused by a crash for Gresini rider Marquez.

On Sunday, Marini himself admitted that he could have finished second in the race had he managed to stay ahead of Acosta after overtaking him. Instead, he got stuck in a right battle with Fernandez’s Aprilia, and tumbled down the order when the pair clashed at Turn 17. 

Mir had already recovered from his poor starting position to get up to seventh on the opening lap, but it all came undone when, still having not got his tyre up to temperature, he crashed at Turn 16. This was Mir’s 11th DNF of 2025, but one that will hurt more than most others.

Marco Bezzecchi “in too much of a rush” in Marc Marquez battle, says Ducati

Ducati wants to “protect” devastated Francesco Bagnaia after Indonesia nadir

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