Ducati MotoGP rider Marc Marquez won in unconventional fashion on his debut in factory red at the 2025 Thai Grand Prix at Buriram.
It marked the first time Marquez has won the season-opening grand prix since 2014 - a season he'd kicked off with 10 wins in a row.
But it was a deeply unorthodox win - with Marquez dropping behind his brother Alex shortly after establishing a comfortable early lead, and then spending a good half of the race sat right behind Alex.
Leading finishers
1 M Marquez
2 A Marquez
3 Bagnaia
4 Morbidelli
5 Ogura
Full results at bottom of page
Like on Saturday, Marc kept the lead off pole into Turn 1 - and like on Saturday, Pecco Bagnaia sent it down the inside of Alex Marquez for second, albeit this time the latter tried to hang it round the outside and ended up ceding position to Ai Ogura, too.
But the younger Marquez quickly reclaimed third from Ogura, then pounced on Bagnaia at Turn 7 to restore the status quo.
This meant the race again settled into a comfortable Marquez 1-2, but after clearing away by a second Marc suddenly decided he had to yield position.
On lap seven he had a look over his shoulder coming into the slow Turn 3, then again coming out of the corner, and rolled off on the throttle enough to allow Alex to overtake him just before the braking point.
Marquez initially didn't reveal the reason behind his strategy in parc ferme - but the way he ran the race had all the signs of an attempt to ensure he wasn't in breach of MotoGP's minimum tyre pressure regulations, as the best way to ensure a higher front pressure in-race is running behind another rider.
When quizzed by the wider media later on Sunday afternoon, he confirmed it had been a deliberate tactic with tyre pressures in mind as he had realised he was out of the right range and hadn't been able to resolve that just by hammering the front brake.
The Marquez family swap manoeuvre created something of a five-bike leading pack at this point, featuring the brothers as well as Bagnaia, the charging Franco Morbidelli and the scintillating Ogura.
The latter two couldn't keep up with the leaders for long, but Bagnaia remained a threat in the background for the entire distance.
But just as doubts started to creep in over whether Marc would perhaps be content to stay behind Alex and allow him a first grand prix win, he sent it down the inside of his brother with just three laps left to run.
And he immediately left the race outcome in no doubt, checking out to the tune of nearly two seconds over the remaining race distance and having a friendly argument with Alex on the cool-down lap.
Bagnaia could ultimately only follow the Marquez duo home in third, while Morbidelli completed the top four.
Ogura completed an outrageous debut weekend in fifth, seven seconds off the win yet closer to Marquez than the sixth-placed Marco Bezzecchi - who did salvage a decent result from his own Aprilia debut.
It was a sixth that looked like it could go to Joan Mir and Honda, but Mir crashed out at the final corner while trying desperately to clear Pramac Yamaha's Jack Miller - who had an impressive start to his first grand prix on the Yamaha M1 but then spent the latter half of the race as a rolling roadblock.
Johann Zarco (LCR Honda), Brad Binder (KTM), Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM) and Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) all overtook him to deny him a place in the top 10.
Rookie Fermin Aldeguer was 13th on his debut for Gresini Ducati.
Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo was only 15th after dropping to the back early on and never really recovering - which also told the story of Maverick Vinales' KTM debut.
There was another crasher besides Mir and another retirement but they weren't the same rider. The crash came from Pedro Acosta while running ninth - but the KTM man did remount to finish.
Instead, it was Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) who parked up after running sixth in the early going but fading badly.
Results
1 Marc Marquez (Ducati)
2 Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) +1.732s
3 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) +2.398s
4 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) +5.176s
5 Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) +7.450s
6 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) +14.967s
7 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) +15.225s
8 Brad Binder (KTM) +19.929s
9 Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM) +20.053s
10 Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) +21.546s
11 Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha) +22.315s
12 Luca Marini (Honda) +23.940s
13 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) +24.760s
14 Miguel Oliveira (Pramac Yamaha) +26.097s
15 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) +26.456s
16 Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM) +28.770s
17 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +31.095s
18 Somkiat Chantra (LCR Honda) +31.480s
19 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +42.115s
20 Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) +46.827s
DNF Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia)
DNF Joan Mir (Honda)
