The Japan Times - Marc Marquez continues MotoGP dominance by winning Mugello sprint

The Spanish motorcycling great had to battle back from a disastrous start from pole position at Mugello to claim the full 12 points and move 35 points clear of his closest challenger and brother Alex Marquez.

Marc Marquez, who dropped back into the middle of the pack after fluffing his start on his Ducati bike, eventually finished 1.441sec ahead of his second-placed sibling after overtaking him on the fourth lap.

"At the start I don't know exactly what happened. The launch code was in, then I took it out and then I put it in again, then I lost a lot of positions," he said.

"But we gave a good show out there and we won the sprint race. That was not the main target, the target was to try to not lose a lot of points, but I hope all these Italian fans enjoyed the show because the comeback was super nice."

His teammate Francesco Bagnaia, who has won the last three GPs on home soil at Mugello, dropped back a position into third and is now 98 points off the pace in the title race.

"I feel a bit disappointed, I would have liked to have given something more to this amazing crowd but unluckily this season I can't do what I know how to do, so it's a bit of a shame," said Bagnaia.

"But it is what it is, we have time to solve the problems and try to keep all information possible to try to do something more tomorrow."

It was his eighth win from nine sprint races this season after conquering his 100th career pole earlier on Saturday, and sets him up for another perfect weekend in what has been a dream campaign in his first season with Ducati's factory team.

Marc Marquez has won the sprint and main race at the Thailand, Argentina, Qatar and Aragon MotoGP with eight race weekends completed so far in 2025.

The 32-year-old is already red-hot favourite to draw level with great rival Valentino Rossi on seven world crowns, and move one behind all-time record winner Giacomo Agostini.

Rossi was in the stands to watch more domination from Marc Marquez who in September he called a "dirty" rider who actively worked to stop the Italian icon from winning the 2015 title, which would have been his eighth.

Jorge Lorenzo won the world crown by five points that year but his overall victory hinged on Marquez and Rossi colliding in the penultimate Malaysian MotoGP.

Rossi was penalised for that incident and had to start the year's final GP in Valencia in last place, virtually guaranteeing Lorenzo the title before the race was run.

K.Abe--JT