Trackhouse Racing Team Owner Justin Marks has praised Ai Ogura's start to his rookie season in MotoGP.
Out of the three rookies that entered MotoGP at the start of the 2025 season, Ai Ogura has stood out in the opening three rounds of the season.
The Japanese rider was inside the top five in his first race weekend after finishing fourth and fifth in the Sprint Race and Grand Prix in Thailand.
Ogura then backed up his opening weekend with a top ten finish in Argentina but was disqualified for an illegal ECU. However, he bounced back and finished ninth in the Sprint Race and Grand Prix in America.
The 24-year-old now sits sixth in the MotoGP World Championship and has comfortably beaten his teammate, Raul Fernandez, in the early stages of the season.
Trackhouse Racing owner, Justin Marks, was quick to praise Ogura after the team's home Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas last weekend.
"The step from Moto2 to MotoGP is so big: the bikes have so much power, the aero, and just the level of competition, some of the experience – it’s a huge step, so you don’t really know [how a rookie will do]," said Marks to MotoGP.com.
"But what better rookie to put on the bike than the Moto2 World Champion? That’s why we hired him [Ogura]: incredible talent, very mature, intelligent.
"We hired him with the expectation that we’re going to have a great rider that’s going to be able to compete for points every time we go to the racetrack and eventually be able to compete for podiums.
"His debut in Thailand was spectacular, it was probably better than what we expected, but it also reminded us that we made a great decision in the rider that we put on the bike, so we’re very excited about his future."
