By Donovan Fourie | Guest Contributor | MotoGP Analyst
Marquez unshackled: five rounds with nothing to lose
With the world championship wrapped up last weekend in Japan, Marc Marquez can spend the last five rounds of the year doing pretty much anything he likes. After all, championship-wise, he has nothing to lose. He can not score a single point in any of the last five rounds and will still be crowned 2025 champion in Valencia at the end of the year.
So what will he do? Race, most likely. As hard as he can. This is bad news for the rest of the grid, who might’ve revelled in him occasionally choosing championship strategy over pure speed, if he used any championship strategy over speed before.
Bagnaia’s reset: speed found – blip or bounce-back?
In Japan, Pecco Bagnaia returned to winning form after a season of struggling. He found this much needed pace by taking most of the 2025 parts off his bike, throwing them in a skip while fishing out the 2024 parts. And suddenly, all the accusations of him having lost his edge are silenced. Or are they?
Japan form guide: did Marquez hold back?
In Japan, Marc Marquez didn’t qualify on pole and finished second in both the Sprint Race and the Main Race. Although Marquez was attempting to wrap up the title. Doing something silly, such as crashing and hurting himself, would have been somewhat detrimental to this goal. So was he perhaps sandbagging slightly in Japan, or was he struggling a little? Will Pecco Bagnaia be able to continue his newfound pace and return to winning ways on a more regular basis? Mandelika will tell.
Where we’re racing: Mandalika & the Indonesia buzz
This new circuit is located on the West Nusa Tenggara Island in the nation of Indonesia. If you look at the country of Indonesia, you will see a confusing collection of islands in the Pacific Ocean. If you look at one of the bigger islands towards the southwest of the collection of Islands, that’s West Nusa Tenggara.
It’s highly populated and MotoGP crazy. That should be good news for MotoGP; however, reports suggest that the ticket sales have been slow, with blame being placed on exorbitant ticket prices and hotels in the area attempting to take advantage of an international event nearby by upping accommodation prices. The result of this is, of course, a low turnout.
If this is true, then hopefully organisers and managers will learn and make attendance more accessible next year.
Track character: fast kinks, short straights
The Mandalika Circuit runs in a clockwise direction and is 4.3km long, looking somewhat like a badly crafted ninja star. It’s famous for being one of the faster circuits with hugely quick kinks and sweeps with fast changes of direction. It must be gloriously fun to ride.
To win here is another story. It remains one of the very few circuits Marc Marquez has never won a race on. It is famous for him high-siding massively on in his Honda days. The newly-crowned champion will have this place firmly on his tick-off list.
While the corners are largely fast, the straights are less so – the longest comes in at a meagre 723m and the top speed record, interestingly, is exactly the same as Japan at 319km/h. That’s a long way down on the record of 366km/h.
Who it suits: corner-speed bikes in the spotlight
So, straight line speed is less integral to success on this circuit, and that automatically points the radar towards Fabio Quartararo, whose Yamaha is lousy at doing high speed in a straight line, but is excellent at carrying lots of mid-corner speed, especially fast corners like those at Madalika. The Yamahas struggled at the point-and-squirt Motegi Circuit in Japan, but could well find better fortune here.
Factory watch: Honda’s engine gains vs chassis questions
Honda celebrated a podium in Japan, the first for factory pilot Joan Mir since 2021. Honda used to struggle with straight line speed, but have seemingly been adding ponies to the motor throughout the year, and now finds themselves somewhat more top-speed privileged. However, as already discussed, Mandalika is more about corner speed than top speed. We know Honda’s progress in motor performance, and now we see how it’s getting on with its chassis.
KTM & Aprilia: form puzzle at Mandalika
KTM and Aprilia are somewhat unknown quantities at this point. Previously, KTM was good at hard braking and hard acceleration, and yet struggled at Motegi, a circuit seemingly perfect for its bikes.
Aprilia, traditionally, was good at flowing circuits, and yet thrived in places like Hungary, which is all stop and go.
How either of these manufacturers will perform on Mandalika is left to be seen, but what we do know is that Marco Bezzecchi and Pedro Acosta are so far outperforming their relative stablemates. Acosta was up to second in Japan when the next KTM was 11th. However, as we have seen many times throughout his two years in MotoGP, he is not very good at tyre control and tends to run out of rubber prematurely.
Bez, on the other hand, seems to have found a home at Aprilia and has been a good bet for second place behind Marquez.
We will see if either can produce the goods this weekend.
SA watch: Brad Binder’s Mandalika outlook
For South African Brad Binder, Mandalika sits in the “not bad” box. In the three races held at this track so far, he has had strong top ten finishes, but so far, no podium or no win. Let’s see if he can find more this year.