The championship lead shifts again as Marc Marquez takes his fourth sprint win in a row.
After a brief battle with his brother Alex Marquez in the first two laps of the eleven-lap dash, the Spaniard controlled the sprint form the front and build a comfortable 1.5 seconds lead until the end of the race.
Alex Marquez ended the day in P2 with Franco Morbidelli following the brother duo onto the Lusail podium.
Admitting after the race he didn’t know there were close contestants to his 3rd-place finish, the Italian came close to losing his spot in the top 3 in the final stages of the race with Fabio Quartararo and rookie Fermin Aldeguer looming close.
A last corner attempt to overtake his former Yamaha teammate by Quartararo saw the Frenchman almost lose the front with two hundred meters to go.
Aldeguer picked up the pieces and finished his first-ever MotoGP race in Qatar a superb P4.
Quartararo ended the day in an incredible P5 with Fabio di Giannantonio, although rapidly closing in in the last two laps of the sprint, behind him.
Rookie Ai Ogura led the charge for Aprilia in 7th, even beating title contender Pecco Bagnaia.
After his disaster of a qualifying that saw him crash out with four minutes to go, the Italian was not able to salvage big points in the sprint.
Disaster for @PeccoBagnaia 😱 He crashes out at T4 at a crucial time 💥#QatarGP 🇶🇦 pic.twitter.com/81J1GPB37Z
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 12, 2025
Struggling for pace and being a full second off the frontrunners’ pace, his eighth-place finish was damage control at best.
Marco Bezzecchi rounded out the points-scoring places in P9.
For many in the midfield the Sprint was very much decided by tyre choice.
Taking a bit of a gamble, all KTMs and Hondas – apart from Enea Bastianini – chose the soft rear tyre, which soon turned out to be a risk not worth taking.
All soft-rear-runners began to drop down the order with four laps still to go and ended the day outside the points.
Johann Zarco lamented massive rear grip problems and retired into the pits halfway throught he race.
