Ducati’s Marc Marquez continued his perfect MotoGP Sprint record in 2025 as he took a dominant victory in Qatar.
By taking his fourth Sprint win of the campaign, Marquez regained his championship lead by two points over his brother Alex Marquez.
Marquez got a good start from pole position as the front row held their positions going down into the first corner.
Gresini’s Marquez appeared to have the pace to challenge his brother for the lead and used the slipstream to draw level with Marquez, but ran wide going down into the first corner.
Franco Morbidelli used the superior pace of his VR46 Ducati to move past former team-mate Fabio Quartararo into the podium positions.
Francesco Bagnaia struggled in the opening laps and was overtaken by Ai Ogura and Jorge Martin in quick succession.
The Ducati rider was able to regain 11th from the World Champion, but struggled to keep tabs on the Trackhouse rider ahead.
Out front, Marquez was able to take the advantage in the closing stages of the Sprint, extending his advantage to one and a half seconds, with the minor points positions still up for grabs.
However, the battle for the podium was blown wide open on the final lap of the race as tyre degradation took control, with Morbidelli, Quartararo and Fermin Aldeguer in contention for third place.
At the head of the field, Marquez took the chequered flag to win his fourth consecutive Sprint race by 1.577s.
The younger Marquez continued his streak of second places behind his brother, but lost his lead in the championship.
Morbidelli prevailed to take the final spot on the Sprint podium, which saw a different rider on the rostrum for the first time in 2025.
Aldeguer took a stunning fourth place ahead of Quartararo, who made a mistake in the final corner which relegated him to fifth.
Fabio Di Giannantonio earned sixth place, five seconds clear of Ogura who stormed through to take seventh.
Bagnaia appeared to recover from his struggles early in the race but was still disappointed in eighth, while Marco Bezzecchi took the final point in ninth.
Maverick Vinales and Pedro Acosta suffered from tyre wear in the closing phases of the race and dropped out of the points into 10th and 11th respectively, while Alex Rins split the rest of the KTMs in 12th.
Enea Bastianini scored a 13th place ahead of Brad Binder in 14th, with the South African taking the flag just under a tenth clear of Luca Marini in 15th.
Martin ended his return to race action in 16th as fellow RS-GP rider Raul Fernandez finished just behind in 17th.
Augusto Fernandez continued his stand-in duties and took 18th ahead of team-mate Jack Miller in 19th as Somkiat Chantra completed the finishers in 20th.
Johann Zarco exited the race due to a technical issue, while Honda reported Joan Mir was suffering from gastroenteritis, with the Spanish rider opting to sit out of the Sprint race.
