A match-up between two multiple-time MotoGP champions on what is widely expected to still be the championship's best bike means every storyline is secondary to Pecco Bagnaia versus Marc Marquez heading into the 2025 season.
But while, as long as they stay healthy through the year, Marquez vs Bagnaia is likely to define 2025, there are several riders on the grid going into potentially career-defining - career-making or career-breaking - seasons.
Here are five rider who, even if some are under contract for 2026, could really do with a good year - and five match-ups said riders really need to win.
Alex Rins
vs Miguel Oliveira and Jack Miller
Rins's recovery from his Mugello 2023 injury is no longer in 'wait-and-see' status but instead now firmly in the 'will he ever be the same?' territory.
The Spaniard underwent another surgery on the affected leg in December, the same day he turned 29. He has long maintained the injury isn't influencing his riding, but question marks will remain unless his performance levels improve - especially when he describes the state of his leg the way he does.
"It depends on the day, depends on how warm it is, how cold it is, how cloudy it is. Before, when I was younger, I heard that the old people have problems with the bones when the temperature changes, no? And I didn't understand quite well. For sure now I realise what they were talking about," Rins told The Race MotoGP Podcast last year.
Whether it's the leg or the adaptation to the Yamaha M1, Rins is coming off a one-sided defeat against Fabio Quartararo and will now have two more Yamaha riders added into the mix - thanks to Pramac joining - in Miguel Oliveira and Jack Miller.
Oliveira had a promising start on the bike in post-season testing at Barcelona. Miller - less so, but he's the one with more urgency, on a one-year deal versus two for the Portuguese.
Rins is under contract for 2026 already, but - while taking on Quartararo might be a tall order - he really needs to beat both the Yamaha newcomers, lest he become a total afterthought in the rider market for the next rules cycle debuting in 2027.
Marco Bezzecchi
vs Jorge Martin
Both riders would quite like to have the edge in this one - especially because they aren't thought to be the greatest of friends - but while Martin has the pedigree and the sweet relief of a world title, Bezzecchi only has a lot to prove.
He was desperately limited by Michelin's new rear tyre in 2024, and that tyre hasn't changed - so Bezzecchi's performances this year will be a pivotal litmus test, both for current employer Aprilia and for prospective future employers, of how fundamental this weakness in his game really is.
Going toe-to-toe with Martin will quickly restore him to A-lister status - 2024 forgotten, 2023 remembered instead. But being blown out by the reigning champion, even though he's the reigning champion, would be a big drama.
Brad Binder
vs Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini
Binder told The Race MotoGP Podcast last year that KTM took a step forward in terms of parity between the works team and Tech3.
"We all four work together, we all four spread out the workload, all of our meetings are together, the strategy meetings, all of that...
"There is no difference. It's really, really impressive how they [KTM] have managed that, and for sure it was a big achievement on their behalf."
That can be a good thing for Binder but it can also be a bad thing; he beat rookie Pedro Acosta in the points last year, but is certainly more expendable now than Acosta and more vulnerable to having his rider market stock tanked by a challenge from Tech3's new big-name duo of Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini.
That was the case already before the world found out KTM was in deep trouble financially. Given the size of the question mark now about its long-term and even medium-term future, there's heightened urgency for all of the riders on KTM contracts - and while Acosta will find a good spot whatever happens, Binder and the Tech3 duo would be in more or less the same class of free agents.
Franco Morbidelli
vs Alex Marquez
The only rider in the Ducati camp on a mere one-year deal - and the one coming off the weakest 2024 - Morbidelli will team up with Fabio Di Giannantonio at VR46.
But Di Giannantonio will be on a GP25 versus Morbidelli's GP24, and though the gap between specs isn't expected to be huge the more pertinent comparison will be Morbidelli against other GP24s - and more specifically Alex Marquez.
Much of Morbidelli's underwhelming 2024 can be explained and excused by his brain injury in the pre-season, but instead of going into a first season on a Ducati with almost no relevant experience at all he will now have a full year on the same bike, the GP24, to lean on.
So if the younger Marquez has his number, even with mentor Valentino Rossi's continued backing and faith it won't be good at all for the now 30-year-old Morbidelli's MotoGP prospects.
Johann Zarco
vs Luca Marini and Joan Mir
The only factory seat up for grabs in 2026, at least by the current contractual landscape, is the not-Repsol-anymore Honda ride, currently occupied by Luca Marini.
Marini and Zarco both joined the Japanese manufacturer on two-year deals, off-sequence with most of the grid's contracts, and while the former has looked a relative success after a shaky start the latter has been a roaring one over at the satellite LCR team.
If Zarco were 10 years younger, he'd be a shoo-in at this point for a long-term future at Honda. But at 34 he is on course to leave Honda with a real dilemma on its hands.
He defeated Marini and team-mate Joan Mir (contracted through 2026 but with his stock certainly much lower than in the past) handily last year, so if he does it again in 2025, how could Honda possibly move on from him?
But regressing towards the other Honda riders would make it logical for Honda, which will no doubt be on the hunt for a future franchise rider, to prioritise someone like Marini for continuity into the upcoming rules set while using the spot Zarco occupies right now to look for its next MotoGP champion.
