2025 Austrian GP Highlights 👊

Lights out of my racing Yamada GP here in Austria. It's a sensational start from third place. He's nailed it this time around for Pekka Bagnart. He's immediately ahead of Alex Marquez, trying to find a way through on Marco Bersseke, who slams the door shut on the brakes into the first corner. Bersseke then has made the perfect launch away from pole position. Alex already back in fourth place. Marc, up into P3. Yeah, this time it's Alex Marquez really with the nightmare start. Not a particularly slow one, but of course with the penalty to serve, he needed to move forwards. Instead, he's gone backwards. Up the hill we go then into Turn 3. Slowest call on the circuit. Turn 1st gear now. Marquez attacking immediately on the inside of Bagnart. Left foot off the front peg from 63 as it came under big pressure from 93. They now go side by side. Albo to Alvo on the rundown. 6th gear rundown to Turn 4. Bagnart is not going to be having that. Marc came from a long way back. It was a clean move, but it was a late one. Bagnart back through on the way into Turn 4. This is helping Bersseke pull out a little bit of an early advantage. Tomin Aldegaard didn't have as bad a start as yesterday, but he has also lost ground as Acosta comes through on Alex Marquez. This is a nightmare 1st lap for Alex Marquez. Of course, the one-lap penalty not served yet. Back in that factory, Ducati in hard into the chicane. He's now going to attack Bagnart once again up the hill into the 1st gear Turn 3. This time around, it's a successful mission. He ran wide a little bit after having attacked Bagnart there on the previous lap, but now Marc immediately up into the 2nd. Yeah, that was a clean move. Bagnart couldn't do what he did the lap before and just ducked back underneath the 93. And Marc Marquez now has that move done. Bersseke only able to get half a second's worth of breathing space over the Ducatis, which will now surely start to close down. And it feels at the moment, unfortunately, from Bagnart's point of view, that once again, he's fighting a rear-guard action with Alex Marquez and Pedro Acosta right behind him. Marc Marquez is scampering off up the road to the tune of nearly half a second. He's already closed in on Bersseke on this lap. This is going to be a fast lap for the 93, the fastest of the Grand Prix so far on a 1.29.6. Yeah, and Alex thought about showing his front wheel to Pekka on the run up the hill. He goes into the long-lap penalty loop. Now, then, Alex Marquez into the long-lap penalty loop in 4th place. He's going to drop back in front of the reigning world champion, while Martin lies a bit of debris on the circuit further back. So back out on circuit, Alex Marquez in 11th place. Yeah, I think that will be a couple of lower than that because Martin and Morganelli passed him on the way out. So I think it'll be 13th now, Alex Marquez. There's Martin having recovered off the track. Here comes Alex Marquez. Looks straight back through on Morganelli and Martin. Surely there's not enough room for four of them into Turn 3. And it's Martin that gets mugged. Three go past him. Yeah, he got real bashed up there, didn't he? Martin, Alex Marquez, Morganelli, and the Gian Antonio all sailed on through. He's under pressure now as well from Australian Jack Miller, who gets through. You just wonder whether Martin might be a little bit gun-shy here, having missed so much of the World Championship with severe injuries. He's not sort of used to, is he, being in these heated battles, though. He gives instant payback to Miller on the Pramank Yamaha, although Miller now darts back to the inside, dropping down through 6th. Now look at the battle for 3rd place. And Acosta wants to get on with this. Up ahead, Apeco Bagnai. There's not going to be an awful lot of room there into Turn 9. Surely Acosta's best shot is into Turn 1. Once again, this is following a familiar story in 2025. Bagnai is aggressive in the first couple of laps, but once he starts getting picked up, he just has nothing. Acosta just has to be patient here to work his way through. But Sek is at least trying to make a contest of this Grand Prix. Fair play to Bez. He's just fired in another fastest lap of this Grand Prix, a 1.29.533, which is 600. There's not much in it at all between himself and Martin Sek. And that gap's nearly three-quarters of a second. Ralf Nolan is just going to stop it on the inside of Brad Binder. He just had to get on with that. Couldn't wait any longer. And firming out against the big winner out of that one. You speak to any rider at MotoGP and ask them who's one of the hardest riders to pass is on the brakes, and they'll tell you it is Binder. So he had to be a little bit forceful there. Some will say maybe a little bit too aggressive, as Binder also now gets nerfed out at the first corner. So two costly corners as far as the number 33 is concerned, because he has gone from 5th back down into 9th in the space of, what, about a kilometre? Martin goes in hot there now into the first corner. An indication of just how much Quattroaro is suffering. Marco Bezzecchi up the front of this Grand Prix. That's just in a 1.29.8. Fabio Quattroaro down 18th place. He's just set his best lap of the Grand Prix. His best lap, and it's still about a second off the pace of Bez right now. No power and no grip and no hope. No chance for the Yamaha here in Austria. Marc is really now starting to hunt down Bezzecchi. He's smelling blood here at the Red Bull Ring. He's near the 93. Oh, somebody has gone down. It could be Marc's just cooking that front tyre a little bit too much. Yellow flags are out in sector three. It's not the top two. You can see Bezzecchi. It's Jorge Martin, the reigning world champion, out of 15th place. Let's hope that Jorge Martin is going to be quickly back on his feet, because previously when he's been thrown down the road on that Factory Aprilia, well, it's roughed him up and left him badly injured. Let's have a look. We're on board with Martin. Let's have a listen. Turn 7. Yeah, he just picked up the throttle and he's going through 7. Some multiple rolls, you fear, through the gravel trap. Oh, dear. Bagnay now has got some serious bother. Big, big bother. Gets his right leg clipped in the braking zone there, doesn't he, almost? Bagnay, the big bother came not just from Acosta, but also from Aldeguerre. Jorge Martin is going to the medical centre for what we hope is just a precautionary check-up. Yeah, I'm not sure you're supposed to lob your rear tyre at another rider in the race, which is essentially what Pedro Acosta did there. It was effective. It got him through into third place and it cost Bagnay a fourth. Aldeguerre now through, but Marquez has well and truly got his claws in to Marco Bezzecchi now. Is this where the inevitable begins to become reality? It's coming. It is coming. This is going to be inevitable. Will he decide to attack up the hill into the first gear Turn 1 down to 55 kilometres an hour? Oh, he darts through the inside line there. I think Bezzecchi just charging that little bit high. He's compromised his exit speed on the factory. They go side by side. But for the first time then here in this Grand Prix of Austria, Marc Marquez decides it's his moment. He hits the front. Marco Bezzecchi tries to respond going through fourth and five. Bezzecchi gets that rear squirming underneath him on the RSGP. He is going toe-to-toe with Marc. Just listen to the noise of the crowd. This is brilliant by Bez. What a move that was going through Turn 6. Well, that tells you that Marco Bezzecchi fancies this. Marc Marquez knows that it might not be quite as easy as it was in Brno. Bezzecchi on the Aprilia wants to keep Marc Marquez's victory drive to the Red Bull Ring going for another year. He's going to pick up some slipstream here down the 810 metre start-finish straight. He goes side-by-side with the factory Aprilia. He levels Bezzecchi in the braking zone. Bezzecchi really does try to tough it out on the outside, but Marc has got through. They run down to the chicane into 2A we go. 2B coming up shortly. The left-hander, the squirm acceleration now up the hill. Marc back in the ascendancy. That might be the decisive move. Bezzecchi was unable to launch a counter-attack into the chicane and now Marc Marquez can just pick his own lines. He's not gone on Aprilia, launching up the inside of him, and Marc Marquez might finally have been able to break the resistance of the brilliant Marco Bezzecchi today. Aldeguerre streaking away, isn't he? From Acosta. And streaking after Bezzecchi as well. At the cost of a dead. Yeah, this was the move, then, in the middle of the chicane. Well, Pedro Acosta can't complain with that one given the move he put on Pekka Banyaya. So Fermin Aldeguerre is up into third place at the start of this lap. Aldeguerre was 2.3 seconds off the lead and behind Marco Bezzecchi as we now go across the line. It's down to 1.8 to Marquez, 1.3 to Bez. Aldeguerre a second quicker than the Aprilia last time around. Bezzecchi's going to have to change his focus here from the rider ahead to the rider behind. Rookie? What rookie? This is brilliant by the number 54. Closing in once again on the brakes into Bezzecchi. Surely now he's going to be close enough. He gets the throttle cracked wide open. Can he somehow find a way through up the hill into Turn 3? Yeah, he's going for it. He's having a look on the inside of Bezzecchi. He's made that move. Runs Bez out to the paintwork. The classic block pass there from Aldeguerre. We've got four and a half laps remaining then here now in this Austrian Grand Prix and Aldeguerre on the charge. Bagnay for what must be going through his mind at the moment. He has just been outmuscled, outfought in so many of these battles in this Grand Prix. This is a shadow of the Pekka Bagnay we've seen at the Red Bull Ring over the last three years. The last lap then underway here and Marc Marquez has it in his hands. He's almost a second clear then of the brilliant Aldeguerre. Marc Marquez has been supreme once again. He's about to be for the very first time the king of the Red Bull Ring. He's had so many close calls, so many late battles against the factory Ducati, against Andrea Di Vincenzo and Jorge Lorenzo. But he hits them 4.6. It is six successive victories there now in 2025 for Marc Marquez. It is six successive double wins. Marquez victorious then in Austria for the very first time ahead of Fermin, Aldeguerre and Marco Bizzecchi. Two KTMs inside the top five in the form of Acosta and Bastianini. A best finish since 2023 for Joan Mir ahead of Brad Binder. Then it's Bagnay, Fernandez and Marquez all inside the top ten.