We are into the final days of 2024, the final two to be more specific. Is this the final week of 2024 or the first week of 2025? Whose week begins on Wednesday? Let's consider this a transition period. One year is over even if there is time remaining on the clock. One year has yet to begin even if we have not changed our calendars. Everything will start to be serious next week. All the holidays will be behind us and all we will have is the slog of winter ahead.
Don't worry! We have something to fill this uncertain time. Motorcycle predictions! From a variety of championships on a variety of surfaces. We will cover the globe in these 12 predictions, and some are timely with the start of the Supercross season less than two weeks away.
MotoGP
1. Marc Márquez will reach 100 career pole positions
Moving to Ducati provided the career renaissance we all expected for Márquez. On a year-old Ducati at Gresini, Márquez was back to winning races and gave Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín a hassle despite both those riders being on the new Desmosedici GP24.
For 2025, Márquez will be a factory Ducati rider and on a level playing field with Bagnaia. Many think this will be another leap forward for Márquez and it makes him a championship threat. That is sound thinking. Not only will he be after a title, but a number of milestones as well.
Márquez already holds the record for most pole positions in grand prix motorcycle racing with 94, 25 ahead of the next closest rider. Six pole positions would make him the first to reach 100 in a career. On the year-old Ducati, Márquez had two pole positions. The new Ducati should bring him to a higher level and hitting six pole positions should not be difficult.
2. The "sprint champion" will score fewer than 150 points
MotoGP has had sprint races for two seasons and in each of those two years Jorge Martín has scored the most points from sprint races. In 2023, Martín scored 168 points in sprint races, and in 2024 he scored 171 points. The 2024 results decided the championship. Martín outscored Francesco Bagnaia by 43 points in sprint races, overcoming the 33 point deficit between Martín and Bagnaia from grand prix races.
With Martín moving to Aprilia, it feels unlikely he will be able to match his sprint results achieved on the Pramac Racing Ducati. It opens the door for everyone else to make up ground in sprint races, but I do not think we will see someone win seven sprint races and finish on the sprint podium in 16 races.
A few riders will score more sprint points, but not necessarily score significantly more. Martín's total will come down as well. I think sprint results will be a little more balance, which means it could still be crucial to the final championship result.
3. On at least one occasion will there be three consecutive races with three different manufacturers victorious
Last year saw two manufacturers win in MotoGP.
Ducati - 19
Aprilia - 1
Maverick Viñales won the third race of the season in Austin and that was the only non-Ducati victory the entire season.
Ducati will remain strong and the manufacturer to beat, but too much has changed to think Ducati will remain as dominant as it was.
Jorge Martín has moved to Aprilia. No offense to Franco Morbidelli, Fermín Aldeguer and Álex Márquez, but I do not think those three can do what Marc Márquez accomplished on a year-old bike even if it is a year-old Ducati. KTM has a hungry Pedro Acosta looking for a victory while having a steady hand in Brad Binder, and it has added Viñales and Enea Bastianini at the Tech3 operation.
I don't think we can believe in Yamaha and Honda just yet, but I think we could see a period where a Ducati, a Aprilia and a KTM each win over a three-race stretch.
4. The difference between the top two riders on Japanese bikes will be less than 50 points
Speaking of the Japanese manufacturers, oof, I don't think it will be great in 2025. It might get better. It could not get much worse, but I do not think we are going to see a Honda or a Yamaha win in clear conditions. Fabio Quartararo or Jack Miller could work some magic in the wet, but I am not holding my breath on any of those eight riders being contenders for victories.
The best rider from a Japanese manufacturer in 2024 was Quartararo, 13th in the championship on 113 points. The next closest rider from a Japanese manufacturer was Johann Zarco in 17th on 55 points. That is a difference of 58 points.
Making up eight points is not much, but nothing has proved to be easy for these two manufacturers in the last few seasons. It feels like Yamaha will be better of the two, and Miller should bring a fight to Quartararo.
5. David Alonso's longest winning streak is not greater than four races
After winning 14 races in the 2024 Moto3 season on his way to a championship, Alonso's next act will come in Moto2. Remaining with the CFMoto Aspar Team, Alonso joins a pretty competitive championship. It will not be as easy as last year, a season where he ended with seven consecutive victories.
I do not expect records to fall again. The most victories in the 2024 Moto2 season was four. No rider has ever won five consecutive races in the Moto2 era. No rider has won at least five consecutive races in the middle category of grand prix racing since Marco Melandri won six consecutive 250cc races in 2002.
Alonso will do well, he might even win the championship, but I am not expecting him to continue his record-shattering tear. If he does, well, then we might be watching something special.
6. Moto3 will be the closest championship margin among the top three classes
After being the greatest championship margin in 2024, Moto3 will be the reverse in 2025 and be the closest.
Alonso won the Moto3 title by 165 points over Daniel Holgado. That same margin covered Holgado in second and Tatsuki Suzuki in 14th. Forty points decided the Moto2 title and ten points decided the MotoGP title.
With Alonso leaving, a vacuum is created in Moto3, and I am not sure one rider will sweep in and be close to doing a fraction of what Alonso accomplished. Those 421 points the Colombian scored will have to go to someone, but I don't think any one rider will take on the bulkhead of that total. I expected greater distribution over the entire field, and what could end up being a tighter championship fight while Moto2 and MotoGP could see one rider pull away a little more.
World Superbike
7. Toprak Razgatlioglu will have more third-place finishes in the final four rounds than he will in the first eight rounds
After a sensational season in 2024, Razgatlioglu will have a tough act to follow. Though he missed two rounds after suffering an injury in practice at Magny-Cours, and racing the final portion of the season banged up, topping 18 victories, 13 of which were consecutive, is no easy task. The Turkish rider will remain as the one to beat in World Superbike.
Along with 18 victories, Razgatlioglu stood on the podium 27 times in 30 starts. Of those 27 podium finishes, ten were runner-up results and two were third-place finishes. Those third place finishes were in the first SuperPole race of the season at Phillip Island and in the second full race of the Barcelona weekend, the sixth race of the season. After that, he never finished third again in 2024.
For 2025, we will see an inverse. Razgatlioglu will have more third-place finishes in the final four rounds, 12 races, than he will have in the first eight rounds, 24 races. I am not sure why, but things change. You cannot always finish first or second.
8. At least two rounds will feature three different winners
There have been six World Superbike seasons with the current three-race weekend format, two full races with a SuperPole race in-between. In those six seasons, there have been seven race weekends where three different riders won. It did not happen in 2019 or 2022, but it happened three times in 2020, twice in 2021 and then once in each of the last two seasons.
Razgatlioglu will be hard to beat, but there are enough good riders that we could see two weekends where two other riders come out on top. Razgatlioglu could win the first race and then Danilo Petrucci could win the SuperPole race with Álvaro Bautista winning race two of the weekend. Maybe Razgatlioglu and BMW teammate Michael van der Mark split a weekend and Bautista wins the SuperPole race in the middle. There could be a wet SuperPole race and Jonathan Rea could take an unexpected victory while afterward in a dry race two, Razgatlioglu wins with Nicolò Bulega having already won the day before.
It doesn't happen often, but I think we are due for two weekends in 2025 where there are no repeat winners.
9. None of the top five riders in the championship miss a race
We know Razgatlioglu missed two full rounds after his practice accident at Magny-Cours, but Álvaro Bautista also missed the second full race from Magny-Cours after a SuperPole race accident. Alex Lowes missed the second full race from Aragón after a SuperPole accident. Danilo Petrucci missed the entire Assen round.
The only rider in the top five of the championship to start every race was vice-champion Nicolò Bulega.
We are going to see better health and fortune for the top riders in 2025. All five of the top five in the final championship will start every race. There will be no wondering "what if" or thinking a rider could be a spot or two higher if a round wasn't missed. There will be full participation and no doubt about what has occurred.
Supercross/Motocross
10. At least one Supercross podium will feature three riders that do not finish in the top three of the championship
Supercross has only gotten deeper looking to 2025. The 2024 season had six different winners from five different manufacturers. The field has only gotten tougher this season.
In 2024, at least one of the eventual top three championship finishers were on the podium in every race. In seven of 17 rounds, only one of the eventual championship top three were on the podium. In 2023, every race had at least one of the championship top three on the podium and in five races was only one of the podium finishers a top three championship finisher.
With the quality of the field, I believe there will be one night where the top three finishers will not end up being the championship top three when the season ends at Salt Lake City in May.
11. Jorge Prado will be the top finishing European rider in the Supercross championship
One of the reasons why it has become much more competitive for the 2025 Supercross season is the introduction of the two-time World Motocross championship Jorge Prado. The Spaniard won the World Championship the last two years, and come January 5, the 24-year-old will compete full-time in the AMA Supercross season.
Switching to Kawasaki, Prado made his Supercross debut last year when he ran the first four rounds with Gas Gas. He had promising moments, but he was learning the law of the land in Supercross. He was seventh in his second start at San Francisco and he won a heat race that weekend.
Prado might not dominate the championship, but he will be competitive and he will not be an afterthought. There will be a few races where he will be a key player, and I think he will win a race. Jason Anderson was the top Kawasaki rider in the championship last season. Winless, Anderson was fifth in the championship with four podium finishes and 11 top five results.
Based on his ability and as long as he remains healthy, Prado should be the top European rider in the championship. His main competition will be Ken Roczen and Dylan Ferrandis. Ferrandis is on a customer Honda. The Frenchman can get good results but he is not going to be competing for race victories. Roczen can win races and he can finish on the podium, but the German's issue is he is bound to have a few off nights and he struggles to stay healthy.
Based on points per start, Roczen was on track for 270.78 points and Ferrandis was on pace for 208.25 points. That would have placed those two in sixth and ninth in the championship respectively, an improvement of one spot and three spots from their actual championship finishes.
I think Prado can finish in the top five of the championship, not necessarily win it but match Anderson's output and take fifth, possibly be a little bit better and take fourth.
12. Neither Jett Lawrence nor Haiden Deegan will win SuperMotocross World Championships
In two seasons of the SuperMotocross World Championship, there have been two riders to win the championships in each category. Jett Lawrence and Haiden Deegan. Lawrence has won both 450cc titles. Deegan has claimed both 250cc titles.
That will not continue in 2025. Nothing lasts forever, and frankly we are a little lucky to have Lawrence and Deegan each win twice in two years. In 2023, Deegan had to win the final round from Los Angeles to take the 250cc title from Jo Shimoda. In that same year, Chase Sexton went down in the final race while leading to gift Lawrence the 450cc title. In 2024, Jett Lawrence finished tied with his brother Hunter for the 450cc title only to take the title on tiebreaker.
Both Lawrence and Deegan are excellent riders, but there is other top talent out there, and with the nature of the SuperMotocross championship being three rounds, the door is open for someone else to sneak through and claim the crown. That happens in both categories in 2025.
Four down, one to go! If you missed the Formula One predictions, NASCAR predictions or sports car predictions, feel free to check those out. We end the year as we normally do with IndyCar predictions.
