And now for something completely different – an actual MotoGP race …
It’s no fault of the world championship that MotoGP has endured a three-week break before a back-to-back between the Netherlands this weekend and Germany immediately afterwards – which precedes the customary three-week summer shutdown in July.
What MotoGP fans could never have imagined after the inaugural race in Kazakhstan was postponed from mid-June to September was that the on-track hiatus would coincide with an off-track maelstrom of rider market madness, the likes of which we’ve never seen in such a compressed time frame.
Every MotoGP qualifying, practice and race LIVE and ad-break free from lights out to the chequered flag. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >
Consider: of the 22 riders in action this weekend, six of them have changed teams for 2025 since the chequered flag fell at Mugello in Italy on June 2. Others – Australia’s Jack Miller among them after being deemed surplus to requirements by not one but both KTM teams – are fighting for their MotoGP futures with nothing secured for next season.
For June, and with 65 per cent of a season still to play out, it’s an unprecedented cocktail of uncertainty, bruised egos and longer-term distractions.
And with five of the top six in the standings off to pastures new after this season, it’s a recipe that may just have installed Francesco Bagnaia as the title favourite, irrespective of the fact he trails Ducati stablemate Jorge Martin by 18 points. As the only one of that top six staying put for 2025, the 27-year-old has the stability his rivals don’t.
MORE MOTOGP NEWS
LEARNING FROM LOSS Our exclusive interview with championship leader Jorge Martin
‘HE SEES YOU BLEEDING, HE BITES HARDER’ Legend’s warning with champs on collision course
And then there’s the Assen factor.
Bagnaia has made plenty of posts a winner in the past two seasons – he came into 2024 with a chance to join an exclusive club with Mick Doohan, Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez as the only riders to take a hat-trick of titles in three decades – but Assen is where he’s burned brighter than most other stops on the calendar.
The Italian has the map of the revered Dutch track – and its geographic coordinates – tattooed on his right arm, a permanent reminder of his mastery of one of the sport’s most enduring circuits, and its significance to his career.
Bagnaia took his first world championship victory in the Moto3 category at Assen in 2016, and also won there in Moto2 in 2018 – the season he won the intermediate-class crown before graduating to MotoGP. It was the beginning of a trend; he won there in 2022 and 2023, too, both years finishing with titles.
History goes hand-in-hand with momentum; Bagnaia arrives in the Netherlands off victories in the past two rounds in Catalunya and Mugello, aiming to become the first rider to win three Grands Prix on the bounce since his own four-race run in 2022, which started – you guessed it – at Assen.
The fast, flowing circuit with few braking points of note regularly produces contests that go down as instant classics, the 2018 race that featured an absurd 175 overtakes and six different leaders over 26 laps widely revered as one of the best in the world championship’s history.
With 10 different riders already finishing on the podium across the first seven rounds, more Assen fireworks would surprise few; neither would Bagnaia extending his Dutch domination, and asking plenty of questions of his fellow title contenders who’ll already have, consciously or not, one eye on next season.
Here’s your Insider’s Guide of what to watch from round eight of the MotoGP season.
MILLER BLINDSIDED BY KTM DOOR CLOSING
Jack Miller claims KTM went back on its word to keep him in their two-team set-up for the 2025 season after the Australian lost his place at the Austrian squad’s factory outfit to Pedro Acosta.
With Acosta being promoted alongside incumbent Brad Binder after a superb rookie campaign with sister team Tech3, Miller was keen to continue with KTM’s second squad, branded as GasGas and running identical RC16 machines to its ‘A-team’ this season.
However, KTM announced Enea Bastianini (Ducati) and Maverick Vinales (Aprilia) would ride for Tech3 next season a little over a week after the Italian Grand Prix, a decision which Miller admitted left him blindsided.
“The last I heard it was ‘don’t bother talking to anybody, we want to keep you in the family’, and then you get a phone call three hours before the press release gets launched saying ‘you’re not getting a contract’,” a clearly perplexed Miller said on Thursday.
“I was surprised to say the least. As I said to them [KTM], I didn’t come to this project to be in and out in two years. It’s about gaining knowledge, gaining experience and developing the bike, and that’s where I felt we were heading. But management had a different plan, so that’s up to them.”
With the seats on the 2025 grid filling up fast, Miller’s best options look to be a return to Ducati in one of its satellite outfits, or renewing ties with the Pramac team, which is likely to switch from Ducati machinery to Yamaha for next season.
The customer Gresini squad needs a replacement for Marc Marquez, while Pramac – who Miller rode a Ducati for in 2019-20 – shapes as another alternative if he’s to extend his MotoGP tenure into an 11th season.
MORE MOTOGP COVERAGE
‘THAT DICKHEAD’S GOING TO CRASH’ The story behind Aussie’s 1000-1 Assen stunner
FIVE BIG QUESTIONS How the 2025 rider market mayhem impacts 2024
“At the moment, it’s all been talk,” Miller said of the speculation surrounding his future.
“It’s about weighing up what I want, what the project has to offer. Going to a Ducati is very, very interesting because I know the bike very well, I know the structure very well. I have no doubts I can get back on that bike and be inside the top five almost instantly.”
With MotoGP shifting to a new set of regulations after 2026, Miller is eyeing a long-term race seat, and has no thought of accepting a role as a test rider for one of the sport’s five manufacturers.
“A lot of things will change in MotoGP come ’27,” he said.
“Working on a project and looking for a long-term home to finish out my last strong years in MotoGP – and working towards a common goal, which I thought we had [at KTM], but we didn’t – that’s one of those things we need to weigh up.
“I still feel like I’ve got more to give. I still want to be here a little bit longer. Fortunately enough for me, I haven’t burnt any bridges here in the paddock, so I can walk into the majority of the teams and have a chat.
“For the moment … I don’t think of myself as a test rider. I enjoy racing. I don’t enjoy the testing side of it, I do it because I enjoy the work because you’re working towards a goal. Just going around in circles on a motorbike doesn’t excite me. Going out there and competing with 22 other bikes is what I do this for.”
MARTIN: ‘I GO TO A PLACE WHERE THEY WANT ME’
Like Miller, Jorge Martin arrived in Assen less than happy with his current employer, after the post-Mugello rider market fireworks that saw Marc Marquez signed for the seat the Spaniard coveted at the factory Ducati team.
Unlike the Australian, Martin landed on his feet quickly, Ducati’s jilted world championship leader abruptly signing a multi-year deal with Aprilia just a day after it was made clear to him on Sunday night after the Italian Grand Prix that he’d been overlooked for Marquez.
As reported by the-race.com, Ducati changed its offer of a straight contract to Martin that had been described as a done deal in the lead-up to Mugello by the Italian press to a shootout between him and Marquez for the rest of 2024, with whichever rider finished higher in the standings getting the job as Bagnaia’s teammate. When both parties rejected that idea, Ducati went for Marquez – and left Martin seething.
Both riders appeared – alongside Bagnaia – in a tense pre-event press conference on Thursday. Martin was calm, but firm, in explaining why he had to leave the sport’s dominant manufacturer.
“I arrived in Mugello with some ideas, with some information that then during the weekend changed quite a lot,” he said.
“So as soon as the race finished, I understood that maybe it wasn’t that clear so I had to take a decision. Sometimes in life, things don’t go as you expect or as you want. For sure it was a bit frustrating … after four years of trying to go to the official [Ducati] bike.
“I wasn’t the decision or the best solution for Ducati, but I took the best opportunity I could. I think I will be much happier (in the) next years where I go and I also will be a factory rider, that was my dream.
“I go to a place where they really want me and where they will give their 100 per cent for me.”
While the prospect of Martin winning the title and taking the number 1 plate reserved for the world champion to a rival manufacturer has many in the paddock wondering if he’ll be given a fair chance by Ducati to end the year on top, the Spaniard was quick to dismiss that theory.
“I will give my 100 per cent to win, give my best to try to win,” he said.
“They told me also I will have the same material I had until 1719537447. I’m confident that it will not be an issue and I can battle with these two guys [Bagnaia and Marquez] with fair conditions.”
DID MARQUEZ SHIFT THE BALANCE OF MOTOGP?
Ducati signing Marquez for its factory team had wider-reaching ramifications than Martin jumping ship.
In the weeks that followed Mugello, current Ducati riders Bastianini and Marco Bezzecchi left for KTM and Aprilia respectively; all three departing riders have won races in the past two seasons, and with paddock speculation swirling that Pramac may announce its switch to become Yamaha’s second team as early as this weekend, Ducati’s recent stranglehold over the sport may be about to shift.
For the past two seasons, Ducati – with eight bikes on the grid, four more than any other manufacturer – has been the brand to beat, winning 17 of 20 Grands Prix in 2023 and six of seven this season, Aprilia’s Vinales ruining Ducati’s 2024 clean sheet to date.
Ducati riders occupy the first four places in the riders’ standings and have taken five of seven pole positions this season, while the Italian brand has had a rider on the podium for 53 consecutive Grands Prix dating back to the 2021 British Grand Prix, where Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), Alex Rins (Suzuki) and Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) were on the rostrum at Silverstone.
With Ducati set to downsize to six bikes for 2025 – Yamaha would join KTM, Honda and Aprilia with four entries per race if Pramac switches manufacturers – Espargaro suggested the sport as a whole would benefit.
“Ducati, by the strategy that they have taken … they’ve helped the other manufacturers a lot, that’s for sure,” Espargaro, who will retire at the end of 2024, said on Thursday.
“KTM is going to be super strong, Aprilia is going to be really strong with really motivated riders. Looks like [Ducati] are going to lose two bikes, so we’re going to balance the championship.
“Everybody was expecting changes from [incoming owners] Liberty Media, and then the paddock by itself made the movement …”.
BEZZECCHI ‘A BIT AFRAID’ TO TELL ROSSI HE WAS LEAVING
A rider more pleased than most to be back at Assen was Bezzecchi, as the Italian has been a disappointment this season after winning three Grands Prix for the Valentino Rossi-run VR46 Ducati team last year to finish third in the world championship.
Coming into round eight, the hirsute 25-year-old has just one podium to his name this season to sit 11th in the standings with 45 points, and has been out-performed by teammate compatriot Fabio Di Giannantonio. Di Giannantonio is yet to cement a contract for next season, but is ninth overall with 74 points while holding a 5-2 head-to-head qualifying advantage over Bezzecchi.
Bezzecchi signed with Aprilia as Martin’s teammate for 2025 after Vinales moved to KTM following the Italian GP, and Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola said “my feeling is the real ‘Bez’ is the one of last year, not one of this year,” when asked if he had any concerns about Bezzecchi’s underwhelming 2024 form.
Bezzecchi rejected a move to Pramac Ducati – and a 2024-spec bike – last year to stay with VR46 on a year-old Desmosedici, riding for the team run by Rossi, his mentor and idol. On Thursday at Assen, he explained that moving to a full-factory team in Aprilia – and not for a factory-supported bike at Pramac – made this decision different, even if it meant departing a team run by Rossi, his childhood hero.
“Last year, Ducati gave me the possibility to go into the factory-supported team which was a very good offer, but I didn’t know if I would feel the same with all the team like I do right now,” he said.
“I wanted to change to a full factory team, I had the chance to change from my team to a full factory team.
“Fortunately he [Rossi] understood everything, because I was a bit afraid to be honest! But he understood, like a good friend. We saw each other on Monday to watch the Italian football team … the day that the news came out. We hugged each other and he was happy for me.”
Assen has been a happy hunting ground for Bezzecchi in his two previous MotoGP visits, taking his maiden podium in the premier class when he finished second in 2022, and taking pole, winning the sprint race and finishing second to Bagnaia in the Grand Prix last season.
Source Agencies
