Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez leads the MotoGP title race by 40 points and has just won again at one of his weakest tracks.
The Spaniard had to overcome the first sustained charge by teammate Francesco Bagnaia of the season, as they locked horns in the early stages of the Italian Grand Prix.
Marquez played the game and was aware that tyre wear would play a big factor at the end of the race, saving some rubber for later on, which paid off handsomely.
Ducati were on the edge of their seats for a few laps, as were the fans, but it was their Spanish rider who extended their winning streak at Mugello for another year.
After starting the weekend in their usual red colours, MotoGP fans gave Ducati a ’10/10′ for a special new livery they unveiled and raced on Sunday. It looked spectacular in the Tuscan sun.
But, on track, Marquez ‘kept telling himself’ he could win the Italian Grand Prix after coming into the weekend expecting a damage limitation operation. It was a very pleasant surprise.
Marc Marquez thinks Francesco Bagnaia ‘lacked’ speed at the Italian Grand Prix
Neil Hodgson was stunned by a ‘weird’ Bagnaia decision at Mugello, after he chose to throw in the towel late in the race.
Instead of fighting fellow countryman Fabio Di Giannantonio hard for the last spot on the podium in front of his home crowd, he didn’t put up much of a fight.
He seemed resigned to his fate, and teammate Marquez believes that despite his ‘very aggressive’ efforts, he just ‘lacked’ speed this weekend.
“I think it was the best strategy for him and I expected a very aggressive Pecco, because in his last victories here he has always been in the lead from start to finish,” he told GPOne.
“He is very comfortable when in the lead and I knew he would try, but today he maybe lacked a little bit of speed. He had some very good early laps, but as I said before, when Alex passed us, he was the one who was faster than everyone in that part of the race.”
Francesco Bagnaia matches unwanted feat after the Italian Grand Prix
Since the backend of the 2021 MotoGP season – Bagnaia’s first with the factory Ducati team, he has not gone more than six races without a victory.
At Mugello, he matched that feat, meaning that failing to win at the next race in the Netherlands would hand him his longest win drought in four years.
There are plenty of questions and too few answers. The problem appears to stem from the fork of his bike, which cannot be changed.
Bagnaia will stay a ‘weak rider’ according to Jorge Lorenzo, unless he accepts that his GP25 bike is not going to change.
Nine races into the campaign, and already a lot of damage will have been done, perhaps to his confidence too, as he struggles to find a solution.
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