Marc Marquez wasn’t the most impressive rider in MotoGP’s season-opening Thailand Grand Prix last weekend.
Sorry, say that again?
Marc Marquez – winner of the sprint race and Grand Prix from pole position on debut for Ducati’s factory team to lead the world championship for the first time in over five years – wasn’t the most impressive rider in Buriram.
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Japanese rookie Ai Ogura was. Partly because, after six MotoGP world titles, we know what the 32-year-old Spaniard can do. Ogura, the Aprilia debutant for Trackhouse Racing, was an unknown quantity in the cutthroat world of MotoGP’s premier class.
The key word? ‘Was’. Ogura, in furnace-like conditions in Thailand that saw riders burned and bruised on a track nudging 50 degrees in the blazing afternoon sun for three straight days, kept his cool to storm into the MotoGP record books.
Fifth on the grid was the best qualifying performance for a rookie since Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 world champion, was fifth on debut in Qatar in 2019. Fifth in Sunday’s Grand Prix was the best debut for a rookie since Marquez himself, for Honda 12 years ago.
Sandwiched in between was a fourth-place finish in Saturday’s sprint race, where he harried Marquez’s new teammate – and two-time MotoGP champion – Francesco Bagnaia for 13 laps for a place on the podium, falling just 0.9 seconds short.
The numbers were impressive enough, but the company he was keeping – both in the moment and historically – was what really raised eyebrows. And his hardwired rivals were quick to acknowledge his performance.
“The MVP of the day is Ai Ogura,” said Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli, unable to make ground on the Japanese rookie in the sprint.
“He was impressive. I was expecting him to drop back [towards] me, to have some ‘spots’ … instead he had a spotless race.”
Bagnaia, with ideas of chasing fellow Ducati riders and siblings Marc and Alex Marquez ahead of him, had to shift his focus.
“I was pushing more to not be overtaken by him than to close the gap to the Marquez brothers,” he said.
“Ai was there pushing a lot … in the last part of the sprint I opened the gap to be calm in the last two laps, but he’s impressive – one of the best performance by a rookie in the last years.”
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For Davide Brivio, the veteran team principal at helm of Trackhouse, it was a result he felt was possible, just not yet. For Ogura himself, hearing the praise from his peers was a pinch-me moment.
“The race was top, it couldn’t be better,” he beamed after the sprint race.
“I’m proud of myself so much because these guys saying this about me, it just makes me happy and motivates me even more.”
SO, WHO IS AI OGURA?
More casual Australian MotoGP fans may be familiar with Ogura’s name, but not much else. But the 24-year-old has been on the periphery of MotoGP for some time, if only because his upbringing and brand association had the premier class in his future.
Born into a motorsport-mad family in Kiyose, west of Tokyo, Ogura cut his teeth on the Asia Talent Cup scene before entering the world championship picture – with Honda – in the Moto3 category in 2018.
By 2020, Ogura finished third in a desperately-close Moto3 season where just 11 points separated first from fourth, leading to a move to Moto2 with Honda backing the following season. By 2022, Ogura was in the lead of the intermediate-class championship after the antepenultimate round of the season in Australia before throwing the title away with crashes in the final two races, losing out to Spaniard Augusto Fernandez.
With Japanese compatriot Takaaki Nakagami’s career winding down, Ogura loomed as Nakagami’s logical replacement for the LCR Honda MotoGP entry backed by Japanese petroleum giant Idemitsu, but Ogura wasn’t convinced.
Honda – since Marquez’s injuries at the beginning of 2020 ruined the best part of three years of development – had dramatically lost its way, plummeting from being the bike to be on to one that left its riders with battered confidence and broken bones, a potential career-killer in waiting.
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Ogura elected to stay in Moto2, and after a 2023 ruined by a broken wrist in a pre-season training accident, set his sights on the 2024 title. It was a goal he achieved – in Thailand, site of last weekend’s MotoGP debut – last October, a season where he won three times and finished 17 of 19 races inside the top eight, a remarkable feat in a Moto2 category with parity of equipment and a deep pool of talent.
Long before that, Brivio’s interest was piqued. The Italian had returned to the MotoGP paddock in 2024 after three years in Formula 1 with Alpine, signing with American motorsport giant Trackhouse to run the two-wheel side of a business that features NASCAR and American sports car racing as part of its North Carolina-based stable.
Trackhouse had a vacancy for a rider to partner incumbent Raul Fernandez on an Aprilia RS-GP for 2025, and all signs pointed to American Joe Roberts, a Moto2 frontrunner with Ogura, as the logical choice.
Patriotically, commercially – and for MotoGP’s promoter Dorna looking for more cut-through in the US – Roberts made sense. But Brivio’s track record meant his thoughts on Ogura carried weight.
The 60-year-old had, in the same role at Suzuki from 2013-21, overseen the rookie MotoGP seasons of Maverick Vinales (2015), Alex Rins (2017) and Joan Mir (2019), all three riders becoming Grand Prix winners and – in Mir’s case – a world champion (2020). Ogura might have that special something, he reasoned.
Last August, Ogura was named as the replacement for Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira at Trackhouse for the 2025-26 seasons, a rare occasion of a Japanese rider not debuting with a Japanese team in MotoGP.
“It would be nice to have an American rider in an American team,” Brivio told Autosport last August.
“Joe [Roberts] was on our list. But we did our analysis more from a performance point of view, and we came to the conclusion that the route we chose was more appropriate. We will know if we got it right or not in a couple of years.”
Ogura, when asked in an awkward press conference if his decision to sign with Aprilia and turn his back on Honda was purely because of the performance of the Japanese brand’s RC213V machine, was blunt.
“Yes,” he said, adding “about this, I’m not really happy, of course. If I can make a MotoGP step with Honda, of course it’s the best. But, at the same time, I have to think about my future and the situation, so that’s my decision.”
Two months later, Ogura became Japan’s first world champion in any class since Hiroshi Aoyama won the 250cc (now Moto2) title in 2009. Impressive as that was, adapting to a bigger and different bike and away from his Honda roots looked like a long-term play for Brivio and Trackhouse.
Thailand last weekend rapidly proved otherwise.
A DEBUT TO REMEMBER
Qualifying fifth in Thailand – one place behind new Pramac Yamaha rider Jack Miller, who admitted to “switching off my brain” to set the fastest-ever lap of Buriram on a Yamaha – meant Ogura had a front-row seat to the start of his first sprint on Saturday, Ducati trio Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez and Bagnaia directly ahead of him.
Seconds after the lights went out, Ogura audaciously passed Miller and Morbidelli around the outside into the first corner before settling into fourth and harassing Bagnaia for the entire 13-lap duration, finishing a tick over four seconds behind the victor, Marc Marquez.
Later, he admitted his lack of experience with MotoGP machinery played a role in his breathtaking turn one manoeuvre.
“It was nice, but that wasn’t the plan,” he grinned.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect that the guys would brake quite that hard. I almost ran into Jack, so I had to go outside and find some room. I still tried to make the corner, which I could. So, nice!
“I thought the riders were going to ride much more aggressive, but they were riding smooth. That [being smooth] is exactly what I learned from Pecco [Bagnaia]. I was just trying to copy what he was doing because to ride behind Pecco for 13 laps is really high-quality laps for me for me. It’s a big, big surprise.”
What was more surprising was how fresh – relatively speaking – he felt afterwards in such scorching conditions.
“After the sprint, I felt like I was ready for another 13 laps,” he said.
“For me, when I was on a Moto2 bike last year for example, it was just as hot. I don’t know about the other guys on the Aprilia, but at least for me, [the heat] is manageable.”
Come Sunday’s Grand Prix, expectations were raised for what Ogura could do, and he delivered. From fifth on the grid, he briefly rose to fourth before being passed by Morbidelli on lap four, and hung on to the dominant Ducati quartet up front.
After 26 laps, Ogura was the best non-Ducati finisher as the Bologna brand won its 18th straight Grand Prix dating back to last April, and he was 7.5secs ahead of fellow new Aprilia rider – and three-time MotoGP race-winner – Marco Bezzecchi (sixth).
In finishing 7.450secs behind race-winner Marquez, Ogura was fifth in the world championship.
“This weekend was just a miracle,” he said.
“I had another good experience today, all the race behind Franco [Morbidelli] and in the front there were another three guys on Ducati. I really learned a lot from them, it was a fantastic experience. It was perfect.”
Brivio, his bold rider choice instantly validated, was euphoric.
“We are very happy for the result but, also for the way his result came,” he said.
“He positively surprised everyone and I did not expect him to be so fast, so quickly. So, let’s enjoy the moment and this type of race is also very important as it’s a great opportunity to learn, to understand MotoGP more.”
How sustainable is Ogura’s start? Will the next round in Argentina – absent from last year’s calendar and where Ogura hasn’t raced since 2022 – pump the brakes on his Thailand progress, a two-day pre-season test in Buriram helping him to get his eye in?
“I’m still a rookie, and at another track it’s maybe a completely different story,” Ogura said.
“I just want to keep going my way and I’m open to take anything, the bad or the good.”
Ogura’s ceiling remains to be seen. But when you’re in the same sentence as multiple MotoGP world champions after one race weekend – and particularly given Brivio’s golden touch – his future looks bright.
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