I know that, a couple of race reports ago, I wondered if we wanted to see the symmetry of Marc Marquez’s wins to be continued to the end of the season. Well, that still stands, but I might be regretting what I wished for as his continued dominance doesn’t exactly make for much to write about.
True, last time out, brother Alex took the victory in the Main race, and this time, Marco Bezzecchi took the Sprint victory as Marc, atypically, crashed out. Then the Aprilia rider properly took the fight to Marc in the Main race, and if Marc eventually prevailed, then Bez certainly wasn’t going to make it easy for him, the mistake that allowed Marc past notwithstanding. It was a race for the true MotoGP fan; not much action but palpable tension as the two rode around nose to tail, both of them soaking up and applying pressure at the same time. That neither of them buckled is a testament to the level at which these athletes are performing.
Combine Bezzecchi’s recent form with Bagnaia’s continuing woes, and it’s more than likely that he’ll steal third place in the championship from the beleaguered Ducati rider. Bagnaia can’t buy a result on the GP25 at the moment (that’s getting as boring to write as it is to say that Marc Marquez won…!) and it must be killing him inside; the only surprise is that he continues to turn up for race weekends. Quite how he hasn’t exploded at anyone and everyone around him, including his team, the management or the media, is beyond me, although maybe the fact that Marc is winning consistently on the same machine tempers the outburst as the problem is essentially within himself and not with the bike.
If Bagnaia was left frustrated yet again, then so, clearly, was Pedro Acosta. After Brad Binder’s dreadful practice and qualifying, when he had technical problems with his preferred bike and then the virtually unheard-of incident of two drive chains snapping, Acosta could have been forgiven for thinking that that was all the bad luck out of the way for the weekend.
Apparently not; a third snapped drive chain put him out of the race, to his evident disgust. How does that happen in modern motorsport, where reliability is largely bulletproof, certainly when compared to the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s? It’s most likely that it was a faulty batch of chains, but that will be of little consolation to Acosta.
More and more, it’s obvious that, in order to be competitive in MotoGP in 2025, you need a Ducati or, if none are available, an Aprilia. The Sprint top ten had three Aprilias, two KTMs and a lone Honda, while the Main race had an Aprilia, a Honda, a KTM and two Yamahas in the top ten. In neither of the races did KTM, Honda, or Yamaha look remotely like getting in the mix with the leaders.
The VR46 team put on a good show at Rossi’s home track, with a third and fourth in the Sprint, DiGiannantonio ahead of Morbidelli and, in the Main race, a fourth and fifth, Morbidelli ahead of Diggia.
But none of them could live with Marc or Marco. Even Alex Marquez had to settle for a distant third place, seven-plus seconds down the road in the Main race. Let’s rephrase what I said two paragraphs ago: unless you’re Marc Marquez riding a Ducati, then you’re nowhere. If you stop to think about it, it’s an incredible resurrection; there can be very few sportsmen who have come back after three or four years in the doldrums through both injury and, in Honda’s case, a struggling manufacturer, to be a dominant force in their chosen sport.
In fact, the only rider to have done anything similar is Mike Hailwood, who returned to the Isle of Man TT after an 11-year break, during which time he had raced in Formula One, Formula 2 and sports cars, retired with a mangled right foot after a particularly nasty crash at the Nürburgring in 1974 and settled first in South Africa and then New Zealand.
Think about it; eleven years – 1967 to 1978 – during which time racing bikes had changed out of all recognition, progressing from drum-braked four-strokes to disc-braked two-strokes, that were as different as chalk and cheese, never mind advances in chassis and tyre technology and the level of the competition. And yet, Hailwood not only returned but won what was then known as the Formula 1 TT race riding a Ducati, and he only missed out on a victory in the Blue Riband Senior TT that same year thanks to a faulty steering damper. The next year, he returned and, riding a two-stroke Suzuki 500, won the Senior TT, riding against the TT stars of the day, including seven-time TT winner Mick Grant. Now that’s innate skill.
And that’s what Marc Marquez is doing today. Yes, the bikes now, compared to those at the time of his accident in 2020, are largely similar and the circuits remain largely the same, but a rider can’t stare down the barrel of the very real prospect of his career being over and come back to all-but win the championship and not understand that it’s a similar feat, demonstrating innate skill and a desire that still burns bright. Mick Doohan did it, although in a much-shortened time frame in the 1990s, but Rossi never managed it, and he’s often cited as the Greatest of all Time. Marc Marquez is now a member of that elite.
Yamaha debuted the great hope of the new V4 engine in Misano, but while race time is a valuable element of development, the pressure and spectre of under-performing under public scrutiny is always there, and that’s how it transpired at Misano. That it failed to impress in both the races and the post-race test should be taken as nothing more than it is; the first tentative steps of a new concept for a tradition-bound manufacturer. Anyone who expected Yamaha to arrive and blow everyone into the weeds was excessively naïve, but conversely, anyone who thinks Yamaha won’t get the concept right in time is also deluding themselves.
We’ve always needed at least two manufacturers to be capable of winning races at any one time to keep things interesting; it hasn’t always happened, but when it does, the racing – and the rivalries – are memorable. We should enjoy the dominance of Ducati at the moment, as we did the dominant eras of Norton, MV Agusta, Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Yamaha again, and Honda again, but let’s also acknowledge the times when racing was at its best through fierce competition.
History has told us that there are rarely times when two – let alone three or more – manufacturers are at an equal level and capable of winning, but the hope that it will be so is what keeps us coming back at the beginning of every new season. Therefore, the inevitable rejuvenation of Yamaha and Honda, and the continuing development of Aprilia and KTM into the new rules era of 2027 onward, is brilliant news for us all. Ducati will be toppled at some point, but let’s hope they don’t suffer the precipitous fall of Honda or Yamaha and remain close to the top, for the benefit of the sport.
