Nobody wants to be MotoGP’s best loser.
But in the modern era, Valentino Rossi is it.
Shaking your head? Don’t. For while Rossi’s star-studded CV is heaving under the weight of his statistical achievements – nine world titles, seven in MotoGP, 89 premier-class victories – ‘The Doctor’ is also responsible for the most competitive runner-up season in the past decade.
Season 2025 only enhances it.
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With Marc Marquez on the verge of wrapping up a seventh MotoGP title of his own at the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend – the 32-year-old Spaniard needs to only score three more points than closest rival and younger brother Alex Marquez at Motegi to win his first crown since 2019 – the Ducati rider potentially sealing the deal with five rounds remaining makes Alex Marquez’s runner-up campaign one of the least competitive, relative to the winner, we’ve seen since 2015.
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Alex Marquez’s season, his sixth in MotoGP, has been a revelation relative to what came before it; in 2025, the younger Marquez has won his first two Grands Prix (Jerez and Catalunya), won a sprint (Silverstone) and finished on the podium 10 times in 16 Grands Prix, and 12 times in 16 sprints.
But as a runner-up – he’s 93 points ahead of Francesco Bagnaia with five rounds left, so all-but a nailed-on second – Alex Marquez will rank among the decade’s least-competitive bridesmaids compared to the other riders who have finished second to the titleholders.
This season – one that has a surprising five different winners given Marc Marquez’s enormous advantage – Alex has two Grand Prix wins to Marc’s 11 (and counting), one sprint success to Marc’s absurd 14 in 16 starts, and has led the title chase twice – by a single point each time and not since round five at Jerez – as Marc has left everyone in his dust, building a 182-point lead over his brother ahead of this weekend at Motegi.
In terms of championship intrigue, there’s been next to none since Marc led Alex home in the season’s first four sprints, and three of the four opening Grands Prix.
Rossi, though, ranks as the past decade’s most competitive second banana from our list of the five best nearly, but not quite, campaigns.
With apologies to omissions Bagnaia (2021), Franco Morbidelli (2020), Andrea Dovizioso (2018, 2019) and Rossi again (2016) – the other championship runners-up since 2015 who didn’t make the cut – here’s why.
2015: VALENTINO ROSSI
Wins compared to champion: Rossi 4, Jorge Lorenzo 7
Different race-winners in season: 4
Podiums compared to champion: Rossi 15, Lorenzo 12
Led champion in standings for: 16 of 18 rounds
Biggest points lead over champion: 29 (Rd 3, Argentina)
Biggest points deficit to champion: 5 (Rd 18, Valencia)
Final points deficit to champion: 5
Points margin over third place: 83 (Marc Marquez)
Lost title in: Valencia (final round)
We could just write ‘Malaysia 2015’ here and move on. But that would be doing a disservice to Rossi’s best chance to win an eighth premier-class title since 2009, and – ultimately – what became his final chance before his career petered out with an 18th-place championship finish as a 42-year-old in 2021.
Rossi won the opening round of the 2015 season in Qatar to take the series lead, and held that until round 11 at Brno when Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo took top spot (while equal on points, on countback of wins).
Rossi still had an 18-point advantage heading into Australia ahead of arguably the best MotoGP race ever, Rossi, Lorenzo, Marc Marquez and Andrea Iannone swapping positions 52 times among themselves in a fight for the win that left Rossi in fourth, and kicked off the controversy that boiled over a week later in Malaysia when Rossi kicked Marquez off his Honda, and was sent to the back of the grid for the finale in Valencia as punishment.
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Rossi came from 26th to fourth with a remarkable ride at Valencia, but Lorenzo won from pole to take the championship in a season where the Spaniard led after just two of 18 rounds. The Yamaha duo were streets ahead of the rest – Marquez finished third, 83 points adrift of Rossi – but those two names remain linked to this day after the biggest flashpoint in their acrimonious time together on the grid.
2024: FRANCESCO BAGNAIA
Grand Prix wins compared to champion: Bagnaia 11, Jorge Martin 3
Different Grand Prix winners in season: 5
Sprint wins compared to champion: Bagnaia 7, Martin 7
Different sprint winners in season: 6
Grand Prix podiums compared to champion: Bagnaia 16, Martin 16
Sprint podiums compared to champion: Bagnaia 11, Martin 16
Led champion in standings for: 3 of 20 rounds
Biggest points lead over champion: 10 (Rd 9, Germany)
Biggest points deficit to champion: 39 (Rd 6, Catalunya)
Final points deficit to champion: 10
Points margin over third place: 106 (Marc Marquez)
Lost title in: Barcelona (final round)
A world championship Bagnaia lost, or Jorge Martin won? Both views can be true after Bagnaia failed to become the first rider since Marquez to win three championships in a row after he butchered 2024, the second consecutive year the Italian and the Spaniard went to war for the title, but one that came down to the races the former never finished.
Bagnaia may have never been faster – may never be again, based on his 2025 freefall – than he was last year, winning 11 of 20 Grands Prix and going blow-for-blow in qualifying with Martin, matching one of the most explosive one-lap riders we’ve ever seen with six poles. But eight DNFs for Bagnaia – the most critical coming when he crashed out of the lead in the penultimate sprint of the season at Sepang – did him in, Martin prevailing by just 10 points in a season where the championship lead changed hands six times.
No rider has won more Grands Prix in a season and not won the title, an unwanted stat that comes into sharper focus when you consider the ripple effects of 2024 – Martin leaving to Aprilia, Marquez coming into Bagnaia’s factory Ducati team and dominating him along with everyone else – this season.
2022: FABIO QUARTARARO
Wins compared to champion: Quartararo 3, Francesco Bagnaia 7
Different race-winners in season: 7
Podiums compared to champion: Quartararo 8, Bagnaia 10
Led champion in standings for: 17 of 20 rounds
Biggest points lead over champion: 91 (Rd 10, Germany)
Biggest points deficit to champion: 23 (Rd 19, Malaysia)
Final points deficit to champion: 17
Points margin over third place: 29 (Enea Bastianini)
Lost title in: Valencia (final round)
Germany 2022 – Quartararo’s third victory of his 2021 championship defence on a day when Bagnaia crashed out – has increasingly become a moment in time to explain modern-day MotoGP. Three years on, that Sachsenring success remains Quartararo’s most recent; since, Ducati has won 57 Grands Prix, Bagnaia responsible for 24 of them …
Quartararo’s 91-point championship lead after Germany and subsequent title loss to Bagnaia at the final round of the season in Valencia remains, by a mile, the biggest lead squandered in the past decade; to be somewhat kind to the Yamaha rider, a good portion of that sizeable advantage was through his unerring consistency as Bagnaia kept crashing, but once the Italian rattled off four consecutive wins from Assen to Misano, it felt like Quartararo was living on borrowed time.
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Quartararo’s DNF in Australia, allied to Bagnaia’s third-place finish, finally saw the series lead change hands for the final time with two rounds left, and the Ducati rider’s win in Malaysia meant he had a 23-point lead heading into the final round with 25 points available, Bagnaia falling over the line with a nervy ninth place for his worst finish of the year.
2017: ANDREA DOVIZIOSO
Wins compared to champion: Dovizioso 6, Marquez 6
Different race-winners in season: 5
Podiums compared to champion: Dovizioso 8, Marquez 12
Led champion in standings for: 6 of 18 rounds
Biggest points lead over champion: 16 (Rd 7, Catalunya)
Biggest points deficit to champion: 37 (Rd 18, Valencia)
Final points deficit to champion: 37
Points margin over third place: 31 (Maverick Vinales)
Lost title in: Valencia (final round)
Dovizioso had just two MotoGP victories to his name when he surprisingly emerged as Marquez’s title rival in 2017 as a 31-year-old, but the Italian was to prove to be the Spaniard’s biggest obstacle for the next three seasons, albeit to a dwindling degree as time went on.
The 2017 season was the closest of the three, Dovizioso surprisingly bossing Jorge Lorenzo in the same factory Ducati line-up and taking the championship lead for the first time after round eight at Assen, and winning back-to-back races twice to take it back from Marquez after Silverstone.
But Marquez dealt Dovizioso a hammer blow when he won in Australia with three rounds left as Dovizioso finished just 13th at one of his least-favourite tracks.
Marquez needed to finish just 11th in the Valencia finale to secure his crown, which became a formality after Dovizioso crashed out for one of just two non-finishes that season, a non-score that blew the final deficit out to 37 points in a season that was closer than the final stats show.
2023: JORGE MARTIN
Grand Prix wins compared to champion: Martin 4, Francesco Bagnaia 7
Different Grand Prix winners in season: 8
Sprint wins compared to champion: Martin 9, Bagnaia 4
Different sprint winners in season: 6
Grand Prix podiums compared to champion: Martin 8, Bagnaia 15
Sprint podiums compared to champion: Martin 14, Bagnaia 13
Led champion in standings for: 0 of 20 rounds
Biggest points deficit to champion: 62 points (Rd 10, Austria)
Final points deficit to champion: 39
Points margin over third place: 99 (Marco Bezzecchi)
Lost title in: Valencia (final round)
How does a year where the runner-up never led the title race after a single round make this list of the five-best bridesmaid seasons of the past decade? Partly because of how far Martin came from to make the 2023 title fight a genuine question by the time MotoGP wrapped up in Valencia in November, and partly because of how Martin used 2023 to drive him to glory 12 months later.
Halfway through the year, after Bagnaia won in Austria in August, Martin was more than two Grands Prix worth of points behind his fellow Ducati rider with 10 rounds left, but ripped off four pole positions and two perfect sprint/Grand Prix weekends in Misano and Motegi to leave Japan with just a three-point deficit to Bagnaia with six rounds remaining.
Martin took the lead of the title chase when he won the sprint in Indonesia next time out, but threw it all away when he crashed from the lead of the Grand Prix 24 hours later, Bagnaia adding insult to injury when he came through from 13th on the grid to victory, and build an 18-point advantage he’d never relinquish.
Bagnaia had a 21-point lead heading into the final round in Valencia, where a ragged Martin crashed out in an incident with Marc Marquez and Bagnaia eventually won, blowing out the final margin to 39 points after it had been no greater than 27 points for the final quarter of the season, MotoGP’s first with sprint races and a maximum of 12 more points on offer each weekend.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS?
The championship near-misses – or not-so near-misses – in the past decade that missed the cut? They’re all worthy of some discussion, if only because they’re arguably more competitive than Alex Marquez’s runner-up season will look in MotoGP’s annals.
Bagnaia made Quartararo sweat for the 2021 title in a wild season where eight different riders won in 18 rounds, coming from 70 points back after Silverstone (round 12) to make it a contest before he crashed out at Misano to guarantee Quartararo’s crown with two rounds left.
A year earlier, in a weird covid-curtailed 2020 calendar where 14 Grands Prix were held across only nine tracks and Marc Marquez missed the rest of the season after crashing in round one at Jerez, Franco Morbidelli won three races for Yamaha but fell 13 points short of Suzuki’s Joan Mir, who won just once; five years later, neither rider has won another Grand Prix, while Morbidelli has just one top-10 championship finish (ninth in 2024) on his CV since.
Dovizioso’s 2018 season after he pushed Marquez the year prior saw him win four times to delay Marquez’s title victory until the fourth-last Grand Prix in Japan, while in 2019, ‘Dovi’ finished a distant second to a rampaging Marquez, the Italian winning twice and having a handy 58-point gap over third in the standings (Maverick Vinales) in a season where Marquez finished first or second in 18 of 19 races and won the title by 151 points.
In 2016, the first of Marquez’s four straight titles after the controversy of 2015, Rossi was runner-up in a season where he managed 10 podiums to Marquez’s 12, but never led the standings at any stage before Marquez won the title, again in Japan, to beat Rossi by 49 points over 18 rounds.
Alex Marquez’s 2025 – breakthrough that is has undoubtedly been – hasn’t been that competitive relative to the one rider who’ll finish ahead of him in the standings.
And while it’s been a season that has made MotoGP insiders re-evaluate his status and ceiling in the sport, it’s not one that’s likely to ever be mentioned as one of the most memorable runner-up campaigns in the championship’s history, let alone the most recent decade.
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