The Marquez Show Marches on in Austria

Ducati superstar takes 1st Red Bull Ring victory and 11th consecutive win of the season ahead of brother Alex

The Austrian Sprint race burst into life under bright sunshine, though dark clouds brooding in the background threatened to douse the circuit at any moment. Alex Marquez fired off the line for the holeshot while Marc also got a great start to slot straight into second, the brothers edging past Marco Bezzecchi. Francesco Bagnaia had a nightmare opening lap, spinning his rear tyre off the line and tumbling all the way to 14th as the field streamed past.

Marc immediately turned up the pressure, showing Alex a front wheel into Turn 1 on lap two, while Pedro Acosta muscled past Bezzecchi into the chicane to make it a Marquez–Marquez–Acosta trio at the head. Alex dug in and kept his brother at bay, but Acosta was the fastest man on track by lap three and homing in. Alex punched in a lap in the 1:28s to reassert control, while Bagnaia’s race went from bad to worse as he slipped even further back.

By lap five Acosta was glued to Marc’s rear tyre as Alex eked out a few bike lengths. The KTM star overcooked it into Turn 4 though costing him a handful of tenths. Further back, the struggles for Bagnaia deepened as Jorge Martin slipped by, then Joan Mir, the Ducati visibly short of pace. Brad Binder, meanwhile, was on the charge—scything forward with the confidence of KTM’s latest aero update and hounding Raul Fernandez on the fringes of the top five. Acosta began to lose touch with the Marquez brothers as the pace up front stayed relentless; only Alex had beaten Marc in a sprint this year, and for a while it looked like he might make it two.

On Lap 10 Marc decided he’d seen enough of Alex’s rear tyre and drove past with superior drive out of the chicane, and immediately began to edge away. Pushing hard, he flirted with track limits between Turns 11 and 12 but as so often this season, Marc appeared to have conserved his tyres to perfection, pulling inexorably away as the lap ticked by. Bagnaia pulled into the pits soon after, animatedly debriefing a crew that could offer little more than sympathetic nods. At the same time Martin launched a clean attack on Fabio Quartararo into Turn 1 for tenth, with late race to suggest his confidence on the Aprilia is climbing rapidly.

Up front there was no stopping the No. 93. Marc stretched the gap past a second and looked to be almost cruising despite setting a crushing pace. In crossing the line for his first Red Bull win, Marc also took his 2025 win tally to 20, with 11 straight victories and 12 sprint wins out of 13 held so far this season. A staggering set of figures by any measure.

Alex took second place, 3 seconds clear of Acosta in third. Marco Bezzecchi couldn’t convert his pole into a podium finish but still came home with a respectable 4th, while Brad Binder’s late charge delivered fifth. Fermin Aldeguer finished sixth after Raul Fernandez had to pull out with ride height device troubles, while Enea Bastianini took seventh ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio. Johann Zarco once again finished as top Honda in ninth, while Jorge Martin’s late race aggression sealed tenth. Jack Miller could only manage 17th, his Yamaha clearly suffering at a track that rewards horsepower and rear traction – two areas the YZR-M1 struggles with.

2025 Austrian MotoGP Sprint