The most exciting sport on Earth lived up to that mantra time and time again in 2025; blockbuster battles that resulted in some of the closest racing ever seen. We look through the top five closest finishes of the 2025 season across Grands Prix and Sprints, whilst also doing a bit of number crunching to showcase just how close our sport can be.
0.568s – Misano’s Grand Prix
Marco Bezzecchi was leading Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo Team) at Misano on Sunday. A mistake at Turn 8 let the soon-to-be seven-time MotoGP World Champion ahead before both exchanged fastest laps for the rest of the Grand Prix in what was one of the most fast-paced and intense GPs of 2025. Marquez kept Bez at bay but the Italian was a firm fixture on the podium.
0.530s – Le Mans’ Sprint
France is always special and it was unique in 2025 too. Retaking the Championship lead from his brother, Marc Marquez held off Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) to rein supreme by a little over half a second at the chequered flag – cooly waved by cycling legend Mark Cavendish. Behind, late drama for Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), crashing with two corners to go from P5. Rather ironically, on Sunday, Johann Zarco’s (CASTROL Honda LCR) win by 19.907s was the biggest of the year
0.351s – Assen’s Sprint
In another dominant performance by Marc Marquez, the #93 resisted late pressure from brother Alex to hold make it a ninth Sprint victory from the opening ten of the season. Elsewhere, it was a strong initial showing from polesitter and early leader Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) before a crash at Turn 10 took him out of contention.
0.157s – Mandalika’s Sprint
It was a last lap battle in the heat and humidity of Indonesia on Saturday as Bezzecchi and Fermin Aldeguer (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) went head-to-head on the final lap. A poor start from pole, Bez worked his way back through and on the last lap, Aldeguer had no answer at Turn 10. A Saturday victory for Bezzecchi before Aldeguer dominated on Sunday, a weekend to remember for both.
0.120s – Portimao’s Sprint
The closest finish of the MotoGP season, the Portimao Sprint was arguably one of the best of the season. It looked like Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) had it all done and dusted going into the final couple of laps but Pedro Acosta had other ideas, closing in late on. It wasn’t to be as Marquez held on, Acosta forced to wait again. This was also the closest podium of the year, with Bezzecchi in third and just 0.637s from victory.
Extra notes: blink and you’ll miss it!
Just getting points in MotoGP is a hard task these days, particularly when the gap from P1 to P15 is as low as 18.758s – that’s the closest it got this year at Lusail in Qatar. It’s not just once the lights go out either: in qualifying, the closest front row was covered by just 0.044s in Valencia and less than a tenth of a second on three other occasions, whilst the gap between pole and P2 got as low as 0.016s on two occasions: the Red Bull Ring and Balaton Park. It was less than a tenth of a second on nine occasions! Elsewhere, Moto2’s Aragon Grand Prix was the closest finish in the class with just 0.003s between Deniz Öncü and Diogo Moreira.
2026 is just around the corner: will it get any closer?