There was always a nagging doubt at the back of the mind that Marc Marquez was going to defer to brother Alex in Barcelona. Had Marc outscored Alex by three points in Spain, he would have had the chance to wrap up the championship at the next round in Misano.
But Marc didn’t really want that to happen, as it would mean that little brother would have been having less-than-perfect weekends in recent weeks. Marc’s killer instinct is intact, but it seems that blood is thicker than water. Or more important than championship titles. Possibly.
Having said that, Alex was looking imperious in Spain. The pace was there, as well as the mental fortitude to resist the fastest rider on the planet at the moment. Also, there was similar mental flexibility.
He knew, for example, that Marc would be weaker in the long, fast, right-hand corners of the track, thanks to the right arm that had been damaged in his near career-ending crash back in 2020 and which still isn’t what it used to be.
Show Marc Marquez a left-hander and he is all but unbeatable. Right-hand corners are a different matter, especially ones that are fast and long. And that’s where Alex made the difference.
Practice was, for South Africans and KTM, an encouraging affair, with Brad Binder topping the time sheets on Friday overall, team mate Pedro Acosta hot on his heels. The top ten on Friday practice showed how much Ducati’s rivals have closed the gap, with three KTMs, two Aprilias and two Hondas in the mix; Joan Mir even topped Saturday morning’s practice.
Further evidence was the fact that there were only three Ducatis in the top fifteen at the end of the Main race. Sure, two of those were on the top two steps of the podium, which is what really counts, but Ducati’s near-total dominance feels like it may be, if not over, at least being challenged.
Spare a thought for Francesco Bagnaia, however; 21st in Friday practice, only 17th on Saturday and a dreadful 21st in qualifying. Which leads to the pathetic spectacle of some fans saying, “Oh, he’s lost it…” Idiots. He’s a double world champion – not ten years ago but 2022 and 2023 – and he won eleven Grand Prix last year; if he lost the championship to Jorge Martin, it was only by dint of Martin’s consistency in the Sprint races, in which Bagnaia seemed to struggle.
No, Bagnaia has not lost it, but the continuing struggles he is having in bending the GP25 to his will are having a huge effect on his mental stamina. Every rider has a dip in fortune; they can cope with two, three, maybe four races with bad results, but a whole season, while your team mate on the same bike is making hay? That’s got to hurt.
14th in the Sprint race seemed to confirm Bagnaia’s worst fears, but then, in the Main race, he rose all the way up to seventh at the flag, helped with his feel on the bike by the larger fuel tank used for the longer races, and a longer swing arm. Encouraging, perhaps, but then what works one weekend for him sinks him even lower the next, meaning he never has a baseline upon which to build.
What his struggles are going to do, though, is make him even stronger and more determined to fight back to the top and, when he does, the rest of them better watch out. If he can make the GP26 work, then we could be in for a humdinger of a season next year.
Then there’s Fabio Quartararo; nowhere one weekend and then second on the grid, second in the Sprint and fifth in the Main race the next weekend. How confusing must that be? Even Yamaha wasn’t quite sure how that happened, especially as Barcelona is known to be a track with low grip, and one thing Yamaha has been suffering from all year is low rear grip. Go figure.
Talking of Yamaha, there are rumours that the new V4 engine might make a race appearance before the end of the season, which makes sense if it is ready to go; testing is all very well, but there comes a time when it has to be tested in anger in a racing situation and it makes sense that that happens before the beginning of 2026.
KTM had a brilliant race weekend; 4th, 5th and 6th in the Sprint (Acosta, Bastiannini, Binder) and 3rd and 4th in the Main race (Bastiannini, Acosta), with Binder unlucky to crash out. KTM seems to be turning things around, but the problem seems to be that they press reset too hard at the beginning of a season, and it takes the team too long to sort things out, so that the championship is beyond them before they get their act together. If they can turn this around and start strong, maintaining that strength consistently throughout the season, then things might be different.
Other news around KTM in the build-up to the race was around the fact that notably sweary ex-F1 team principal Gunther Steiner had led a consortium buying the Tech3 team, which is, of course, running KTM machinery. Bastiannini’s first GP podium in KTM colours with Steiner present was a bit of fortuitous timing, and overall, Steiner’s interest in MotoGP follows a trend of the sport becoming ever more mainstream, something that is likely to continue thanks to Liberty Media’s acquisition of a majority of the sport from Dorna.
Naturally, some of the questions posed to Steiner addressed concerns that Liberty would use a copy-and-paste approach to MotoGP from F1 in order to grow the sport.
“What we should not adapt from Formula 1, I will not go into specifics because every spot has got its own story to tell or its own way to go,’ he said. “And I don’t think, because a lot of people are now maybe thinking that because Liberty took over, it will copy/paste Formula 1: I don’t think they will do that, because Dorna is still running this place and they know what is important to MotoGP.
“They don’t need to go and copy someone else because they can write their own story.
“There are enough ingredients here to make your own story, and enough people here to make your own story. “You don’t have to go out there and say, ‘let’s do it how they do there’. You always have to look at what other sports are doing, but not only Formula 1.
“There are other sports you can learn from. I learned a lot from entertainment in sports in America, from the stick and ball sports, and how to bring the fans closer.
“You have to look everywhere. But it’s not like you can go ‘let’s take this from Formula 1 and do it here’ because there’s no need for that. “MotoGP can do its own thing and be very successful. It is already successful.”
And long may that continue. We’re off to Misano this weekend; the championship isn’t won yet, and the big question is, how long can Alex Marquez keep his title hopes alive?
