Marco Bezzecchi
Davide Tardozzi was privately ‘dumbfounded’ after Ducati’s poor showing at the Thailand Grand Prix, Neil Hodgson has revealed. The world champions saw their 88-race podium streak come to an end.
Marc Marquez was trying to keep the sequence alive when he suffered a tyre failure that ended his race. VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio was the only other Desmosedici rider in the top eight.
Franco Morbidelli pipped factory rider Francesco Bagnaia to eighth, while Alex Marquez failed to finish for Gresini and test rider Michele Pirro came home 19th. Ducati head to Brazil third in the constructors’ behind KTM and the dominant Aprilia.
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Neil Hodgson says Ducati are making excuses they’ve never made before
Speaking on the Gas it Out podcast, Hodgson said that Tardozzi was at a loss to explain Ducati’s underperformance in an off-camera conversation post-race.
Ducati have previously had difficulties when Michelin have hardened their tyre casing at particularly hot venues, but this had not been a concern during testing at the same circuit a week earlier.
The conditions changed in that time, but Hodgson says Tardozzi was making entirely uncharacteristic excuses. The Borgo Panigale outfit remain the favourites for the title but Aprilia have underlined their status as a credible threat.
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“I had a really good catch-up with Davide Tardozzi after the race,” said Hodgson. “We interviewed him on TNT Sports, but he was hanging around for a bit first. They are the conversations, when you’re not on camera, where you get all the truth.
“He basically said, ‘We are dumbfounded, we don’t know what’s happened this week. Last weekend at the test, we had similar comments from all the riders, we were quite confident, we’d got that tyre working, we’d got a bit more life out of it.’
“He said, ‘We’ve come here, literally one week later, there’d be a lot of rain – so there’s no rubber down, and when you’ve got the bikes in the other classes with the Pirelli rubber, that can make the sensation different.’
“He said all that, and I thought, ‘It’s funny, I’ve never heard anyone from Ducati use that line, that excuse.'”
Injury-hit Marc Marquez wasn’t ‘a nice watch’ in Thailand
Even though he hasn’t returned to 100% fitness, Marquez once again led the Ducati charge in Thailand. He was within four-hundredths of Marco Bezzecchi’s pole position time, and he only lost out on a Sprint win to Pedro Acosta because of a controversial penalty.
Still, Hodgson was reminded of Marquez’s latter days at Honda when watching him at Buriram because he was clearly ‘uncomfortable’ on the bike.
Colleague Sylvain Guintoli was concerned by Marquez’s ‘body language’ during practice. This was only the fourth time since the start of 2025 that he had failed to top a competitive session during a race weekend.
“We commented on watching Marc Marquez in the early sessions,” Hodgson said. “He did not look right at all. Part of that is still down his shoulder, which he’s openly admitted.
“It almost wasn’t a nice watch watching Marc being uncomfortable again. We know what he’s been through, the horror he’s had to go through. It’s going to be a building process for him.”
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