The numbers never lie. Except for the occasional time they don’t always tell the truth …
While ascertaining the top 10 riders of the first half of the 2025 MotoGP season involved a combination of context and cold hard stats, working out who has thrived season-on-season between 2025 and 2024 has less need for nuance, and gives us a numerical snapshot of who might like a do-over and go back to the good old days of the year that was, not suffer through the season that is.
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Drawing a line beneath the first 12 rounds of this year’s season to the three-week break following the Czech Republic Grand Prix – and comparing it to the 2024 campaign after 12 rounds (which came at Aragon) – and there’s 19 riders whose past can be reasonably compared to their present, given rookies Ai Ogura (Aprilia), Somkiat Chantra (Honda) and Fermin Aldeguer (Ducati) were plying their trades in the Moto2 class this time last year.
Make that 18 riders, reasonably – and one very unreasonably.
Comparing 2025 to 2024 for Jorge Martin is next to useless given the reigning world champion has competed in just two rounds for new team Aprilia, his outings in Qatar (round four) and Brno (round 12) coming against a backdrop of eye-watering injuries and bookending a bitter contract dispute that was finally resolved – for now – before he appeared in the final race before the break.
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It’s little surprise that Martin’s year-on-year points drop-off – he led the standings with 299 points after Aragon a year ago and has just nine in two rounds this season – makes for the most precipitous decline of those who rode this year and last. Given his lack of presence – on track at least – in 2025, it feels appropriate to omit him for this exercise.
Assessing the stats for each rider after 12 rounds of 2024 and 2025, 12 have scored more points this season, Australia’s Jack Miller (52 points and 14th place after 12 rounds this year, 48 and 15th a season ago) having the least most to smile about those riders in the black so far this year.
Who has a lot more to be happy about after 12 rounds, and who’d like a mulligan on 2025 given half a chance? There’s a theme for the five biggest winners of the season so far, and a worrying trend line for the five riders who’ve laboured through rather than loved this year’s calendar.
(Note: all stats below are after the first 12 rounds of the 2025 and 2024 seasons)
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FIVE BIGGEST WINNERS
+157 POINTS: ALEX MARQUEZ (DUCATI)
2025 points/position: 261, 2nd
2024 points/position: 104, 8th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 95, 36.3%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 18, 17.3%
2025 points in Grands Prix of total: 166, 63.6%
2024 points in Grands Prix of total: 86, 82.6%
How good – relative to the rest of his five previous MotoGP seasons – has Alex Marquez been this season? The younger Marquez eclipsed the 104 points he scored in the first 12 rounds of last year after only four rounds this season, and 10 podiums in 12 sprints – nine of those second places behind his older sibling – saw sprints make more than double the contribution to his overall points tally year on year. Add 80 more points in 12 Grands Prix so far this year relative to last, and it’s little wonder no rider has improved more than the 29-year-old, even with his worst weekend of the season coming last time out at Brno.
+152: MARC MARQUEZ (DUCATI)
2025 points/position: 381, 1st
2024 points/position: 229, 3rd
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 141, 37%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 70, 30.5%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 240, 63%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 159, 69.5%
For once, Marc Marquez has to trail his younger brother in a list, with round 12 last year (Aragon) his first Grand Prix victory since 2021. Since? He’s won 10 of the past 20 longer-form races and 11 sprints, all this season; of all of the world champion-elect’s stunning 2025 stats, the fact he’s scored 141 of a possible 144 points in sprints (98 per cent) might be the best of the lot.
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Sprints carry more overall weight this year than last for Marquez, whose Grand Prix record could have been even better but for self-inflicted solo crashes in Austin (DNF) and Jerez (where he recovered to 12th after remounting), spills that cost him 40 more points at a minimum.
+92: JOHANN ZARCO (HONDA)
2025 points/position: 109, 8th
2024 points/position: 17, 19th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 20, 18.3%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 0, 0%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 89, 81.7%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 17, 100%
Zarco was one of the biggest losers at the halfway stage of 2024 relative to 2023, which made sense after he’d crossed from Ducati to a Honda project that offered longer-term job security, but no pathway to results. That’s changed for the Frenchman in 2025; the sport’s oldest rider (35) is Honda’s best performer again, but instead of nibbling for crumbs at the back-end of the points, has a Grand Prix win (France) and another podium (Great Britain) to make up nearly 50 per cent of his total. Proof of Honda’s progress? Zarco has scored more points in sprints alone (20) after 12 rounds than he’d managed in total (17) after 12 rounds last season, and has leapt 11 places in the world championship standings, more than any other rider by a mile.
+74: MARCO BEZZECCHI (APRILIA)
2025 points/position: 156, 4th
2024 points/position: 82, 12th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 41, 26.2%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 3, 3.66%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 115, 73.8%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 79, 96.34%
Bezzecchi has achieved the rare feat of leaving Ducati and actually improving at his new address, something others further down on this list can only dream of. While this year is more in keeping with his 2023 emergence (329 points, third in the championship) than last year’s regression (153 points and 12th), coming on strong after his early adaptation to the Aprilia was middling at best has been a pleasant surprise. For a rider who could barely sniff a sprint race point a year ago, the Italian already has two podiums and a quartet of top-four finishes in the Saturday short-format races.
+56: FRANCO MORBIDELLI (DUCATI)
2025 points/position: 139, 6th
2024 points/position: 83, 11th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 37, 26.6%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 22, 26.5%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 102, 73.4%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 61, 73.5%
The rider who replaced Bezzecchi at VR46 Ducati has turned things around to a similar degree in 2025, which can almost wholly be explained by the horrendous accident he had in Portimao in the 2024 pre-season that knocked him around for months and saw him suffer from memory loss for a fortnight in the immediate aftermath. Morbidelli’s percentage of total points from each of the sprint and Grand Prix race formats is near-identical from 2024 to this season; it’s just that in 2025, there’s more of them. There could have been more, too, but for Morbidelli missing the final two rounds before the break after an accident in Germany that damaged his left collarbone.
FIVE BIGGEST LOSERS
-179 POINTS: ENEA BASTIANINI (KTM)
2025 points/position: 49, 17th
2024 points/position: 228, 4th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 7, 14.3%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 62, 27.2%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 42, 85.7%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 166, 72.7%
It’s been a rough season for ‘The Beast’, who was fast enough to win two Grands Prix a year ago, but has been on a slow road to nowhere after being squeezed out of the factory Ducati team for Marc Marquez, a decision absolutely no-one – Bastianini included – can argue in retrospect. Swapping the sport’s best bike for one that struggled to get out of the starting blocks after off-season financial turmoil at KTM explains some of Bastianini’s ills, but he’s only scored in one sprint (Czech Republic) this season, his 2024 sprint points total after 12 rounds exceeding his total points from the first dozen events a year later.
-77: BRAD BINDER (KTM)
2025 points/position: 68, 12th
2024 points/position: 145, 6th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 7, 10.2%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 32, 22%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 61, 89.8%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 113, 78%
Every KTM rider has fewer points after 12 rounds in 2025 than they did in 2024, but that stat stings more for Binder (and new teammate Pedro Acosta, 24 points worse this season) given their incumbency with the Austrian manufacturer. Binder’s poor qualifying pace – Acosta is yet to be beaten by the South African over one lap – hampers his starting positions on a bike that, this year at least, can’t help him cut through the pack in Grands Prix like he has for the past four seasons, where he’s finished inside the top six in the standings every year. Sprints in particular – never a Binder strong suit – have become barren; he’s only finished inside the top nine three times in 12 attempts.
-70: MAVERICK VINALES (KTM)
2025 points/position: 69, 11th
2024 points/position: 139, 7th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 21, 30.4%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 51, 36.7%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 48, 69.6%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 88, 63.3%
Vinales is another KTM rider to be on a list you’d rather avoid, but that’s partly explainable for two reasons. One is that the Spaniard was riding for Aprilia a year ago, and took two sprint wins and a Grand Prix victory – the only long-form race not won by a Ducati all season – in the first 12 rounds of 2024, results that look even better in hindsight. Two is that the 30-year-old missed the final two races before the break with a fractured left shoulder after a monster high-side in a wet Sachsenring qualifying session in Germany; his not-so-good 2025 is less worse than two of his stablemates, if he’s looking for a silver lining.
-63: FRANCESCO BAGNAIA (DUCATI)
2025 points/position: 213 (3rd)
2024 points/position: 276 (2nd)
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 49, 23%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 58, 21%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 164, 77%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 218, 79%
There’s no surprise that perhaps 2025’s most disappointing rider – at least when compared to what new teammate Marquez is doing on the sister bike – is on this list, but you could argue that it feels like the number 63 has lost more than 63 points this year compared to last after 12 rounds. Bagnaia has still banked 12 podiums across 24 total starts, while Marquez gifted him a win when he crashed from a healthy lead in Austin, helping ‘Pecco’s’ points tally. The percentages of points gleaned from sprints and Grands Prix haven’t changed much year on year; it’s just that with the Marquez name finishing above him (twice) more often than not, there’s not so many points available to acquire.
-54: MIGUEL OLIVEIRA (YAMAHA)
2025 points/position: 6, 25th
2024 points/position: 60, 13th
2025 points in sprints/percentage of total: 0, 0%
2024 points in sprints/percentage of total: 16, 26.7%
2025 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 6, 100%
2024 points in Grands Prix/percentage of total: 44, 73.3%
Every other Yamaha rider – Fabio Quartararo (102 points, double his haul after 12 rounds last year), Alex Rins (+27 points year on year) and Miller (+4) – has more points at the comparable stage of 2025 to 2024; while Oliveira gets something of a pass for missing three rounds with injury, his form since his return shows why the jungle drums that Yamaha will rip up the second year of his contract for 2026 have become ever-louder. The Portuguese rider hasn’t sniffed a point in a sprint (his best finish is 11th in Germany), while the relative highs of his second and final season with Aprilia last year must feel like a world away as the clock on his time in the premier class appears ready to strike midnight.