Marc Marquez’s absence might make the end of the 2025 MotoGP season a deceptive picture, but Aprilia’s Valencia Grand Prix 1-2 and Ducati’s general woes since its new champion was hurt make for an intriguing winter.

The Race MotoGP Podcast’s Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer debate how seriously we should take Aprilia’s late-2025 form and Ducati’s fluctuations since Marquez was hurt.

Franco Morbidelli is one of those riders Ducati has to have big question marks over - was his bizarre crash on the grid at Valencia a last straw for his long-term career?

We debate that plus the first serious criticism for Simon Crafar’s stewarding regime and where MotoGP should actually hold its season finale.

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Marco Bezzecchi and Aprilia stole the show again in MotoGP, continuing their remarkable late-season run with an emphatic victory in the Portuguese Grand Prix at Portimao.

But while Bezzecchi deserves to be seen as a legitimate challenger to Marc Marquez’s dominance coming into 2026, can the same be said about an ever-improving Pedro Acosta and a resurgent KTM - despite the fact they still cannot win?

Val Khorounzhiy and Simon Patterson discuss this in an on-site episode, while also touching upon a potent Alex Marquez weekend that was just short of greatness, another 2025 low for Pecco Bagnaia and Nicolo Bulega’s eye-catching debut.

Plus, was the stewards’ panel too lenient on Fermin Aldeguer - and what was going on with Joan Mir?

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Ducati's World Superbike star Nicolo Bulega is making his MotoGP debut in Portimão in relief of the injured Marc Marquez - and, even beyond him replacing the champion, it's more significant than your usual stand-in call-up.

But does Bulega, who will be part of Ducati's MotoGP test team next year, have a real shot at a MotoGP future? And what does he need to show this weekend and in the season finale in Valencia?

Valentin Khorounzhiy and Simon Patterson preview this Ducati debut, before naming five other riders you should watch closely over the final two rounds of the campaign - all of whom face an urgency to go into next season in better form.

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We’ve been reliving MotoGP’s extraordinary 2015 season all year long in The Race Members’ Club and have reached the big flashpoints - the trilogy of the Phillip Island accusations, Sepang clash and Valencia penalty that turned Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez’s simmering tension into an explosion that still echoes around MotoGP a decade on.

We’ve done bonus-length in-depth episodes about both Phillip Island and Sepang, and you can get a taste of them here in the main The Race MotoGP Podcast feed with these clips from those episodes, as Simon Patterson, Megan White, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer debate how Rossi revealed his Phillip Island conspiracy theory and what actually happened in the crucial Sepang collision.

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Pecco Bagnaia’s yo-yo MotoGP 2025 season was back on the up at the Malaysian Grand Prix - at least until a puncture intervened - while Alex Marquez had even more to celebrate, but everything at Sepang was overshadowed by a terrible pre-race Moto3 accident involving champion Jose Antonio Rueda and Noah Dettwiler.

Simon Patterson joins Matt Beer to report from the paddock with what we know about the crash, aftermath and paddock reactions to it.

Bagnaia’s latest swings, the significance of Alex Marquez’s second place in the championship, Aprilia’s dramatic slump, Pedro Acosta falling foul of a new rule and Fabio Quartararo’s new Yamaha ultimatums are all debated too.

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Ducati had its worst MotoGP race since 2021 in the Australian Grand Prix sprint, while Aprilia dominated the whole weekend - with works rider Marco Bezzecchi and Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez splitting the race victories.

So is the Aprilia now the best bike in MotoGP? Is it the bike to beat going into 2025? Is this all a mirage created by Marc Marquez’s injury absence? Where did this Fernandez performance come from given he’d never even run in the top three in a MotoGP Sunday race until now? What would Jorge Martin be achieving on this bike if he’d been injury-free this year?

Phillip Island gave Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer plenty to debate on The Race MotoGP Podcast.

Beyond the Aprilia results, the latest Pecco Bagnaia disaster, KTM stand-in Pol Espargaro’s heroics and Yamaha’s odd weekend are all debated too.

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With Marc Marquez sidelined for at least the next two grands prix, the rest of the 2025 MotoGP field heads to the Australian Grand Prix with a much clearer shot at victory in the absence of the rider who’s had them all beaten for most of the year.

Who’s best placed to benefit from that? Will Fermin Aldeguer double up? Can Marco Bezzecchi overcome the inevitable penalty coming his way for Marquez’s crash? Is this a chance for Pecco Bagnaia to get Ducati back behind him?

Simon Patterson and Matt Beer make their predictions for the wide open Phillip Island weekend in The Race MotoGP Podcast, with a host of leftfield potential surprise contenders in the mix too.

Plus with at least three series regulars out injured (including the 2024 and ‘25 champions) does MotoGP need to take the need for substitute riders more seriously? Simon and Matt offer some solutions.

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A week after Marc Marquez clinched the title and Pecco Bagnaia emphatically returned to form, everything went horribly wrong for the works Ducati MotoGP team at the Indonesian Grand Prix with Marquez suffering a new injury when taken out by Marco Bezzecchi and Bagnaia tumbling right to the back again.

Val Khorounzhiy, Simon Patterson and Matt Beer discuss what happened to Marquez and how quickly (or not) he might be back. But the big debate is over both the state of Bagnaia’s weekend and the controversy and mystery around what’s going on with his bike and his mentality, and the gap between VR46 and Ducati’s accounts of what Bagnaia tested last month at Misano.

All of that slightly overshadows a breakthrough first win for rookie Fermin Aldeguer, in front of fellow rising star Pedro Acosta - will their battle define the years ahead?

We also delve into why the weekend was so weird form-wise overall, including surges to the front by recent strugglers Alex Rins and Raul Fernandez.

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