Friday practice at MotoGP's returning Aragon Grand Prix painted a picture of Marc Marquez's best chance of claiming a race win in his first season as a Ducati rider.
Obvious opportunities at the Circuit of the Americas and the Sachsenring came and went, both weekends undone by crashes at different points. There were some others where he came up just short, either through grid position or race circumstances.
On the evidence of Friday, grid position really should not be a problem at Aragon, where Marquez has five MotoGP wins and where he now holds the lap record after just one day of riding the Ducati GP23 there.
But could Marquez's Friday practice supremacy truly translate on the days where it really matters? There are credible arguments on both sides.
AGAINST: Low-grip deception
Along with probably Jack Miller but to a greater degree still, Marquez is MotoGP's pre-eminent specialist when it comes to low-grip running or, more precisely, variable grip running.
Motorland Aragon, back on the MotoGP calendar after a year's absence, has been resurfaced and was widely observed by the premier-class contingent today as having been very dirty in FP1.
There were varying observations on the grip level, but ultimately it is also about confidence and instinct when it comes to an uncertain track, and Marquez has that in spades.
"The key of the weekend will be understanding the track," Marquez said.
"The track conditions are improving-improving, and this I predict will make everything closer again.
"Today were my conditions. Today was a bit slippery, no traction, losing the front, and I was enjoying [it]."
FOR: But the grip isn't that low
At the same time, many riders also attested that the grip level came up to relatively normal levels by the afternoon, with the track being cleaned and rubber being put down - and yet Marquez's performance advantage remained.
"I was super close and Marc destroyed the lap record. I don’t think it was a slippery track this afternoon," insisted Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro.
Espargaro was Marquez's closest rival on Friday, just under three tenths off, with Aprilia team-mate Maverick Vinales also there or thereabouts.
It continued the recent trend of the Aprilias being able to extract more out of a qualifying lap, but they have not been able to live with the Ducatis over a race distance for quite a few weekends now. And of those who are more likely to challenge Marquez over a race distance, Jorge Martin was closest - six tenths off.
FOR: Friendlier to the GP23... maybe
There was already expectation coming into the weekend that the Aragon might be more favourable to the year-old Ducati relative to its juggernaut newer offering.
Alex Marquez pointed out at the Red Bull Ring that the upgraded Ducati ride height device, available only to the newer-spec bikes, would be less of a factor at Aragon specifically.
And on Friday his elder brother put it like that: "It's true that especially the '24 makes the difference when they can put a lot of torque on the ground.
"Today, if you check, [Johann] Zarco was in [Q2] with the Honda. Why? Because when you have low grip, the grip of the track puts the limit - not the [grip of the] bike."
But Marquez, again, expects that to change.
"The GP24s did a big step from this morning to this afternoon, and I predicted they will make an even bigger step tomorrow," he said - and he also pointed out that there were still three newer-spec Ducatis in the top 10 versus two older-spec Ducatis (one of these being Alex's, who was fifth after he tucked in behind Marc for a slipstream on the latter's record lap).
AGAINST: The GP24 progression
Regardless of the ultimate potential of the GP24 versus the GP23, it is clear that that the newer Ducatis were - for once - struggling to get their bikes in the right window.
Franco Morbidelli said the laptime that put him into Q2 came "almost magically" given the rest of his day. Enea Bastianini - who would've been in Q2 but for a yellow flag - said "we weren't ready to be fast like Marc".
"Marc was fast from the start, he didn’t touch anything on the bike - we modified a lot, every [GP24] rider, and I think we have to adjust a bit also for tomorrow," he added. "But I can’t explain very well why.”
Marquez corroborated that he indeed kept the bike as is. But while more changes are coming to the GP24s, Bastianini sounded bullish about getting the performance back going further into the weekend.
Championship leader Pecco Bagnaia, whose opening practice was compromised by what he felt was a 'non-bike' issue that he wouldn't elaborate on, sounded fairly bullish, too.
"Honestly, the same step we did today - if we can do it tomorrow - it will be enough to be close," Bagnaia insisted.
"Then for sure Marc at the moment is quite, quite strong. Sector two, sector four, he’s doing the difference. We’re closing the gap because of sector one, sector three right now, we are very strong.
"At the moment he’s the man to beat, absolutely, in terms of time attack, in terms of pace. But I think we can close the gap.”
FOR: Trending the right way
The best news for Marquez is that the biggest part of the job for him is close to being done.
There is no risk of being outside the top 12 on the grid, and it feels unlikely that his rivals will make such a step before qualifying early on Saturday that they will kick him off even the first row.
When asked if he was thinking about a win, he said: "Today, yes. Today we are first. We are the fastest.
"But it's only Friday. Tomorrow we have the next target that is the qualifying, try to be on that front row, maximum second row.
"But today we were super competitive."
And Marquez believes that this is not just an Aragon-specific development.
"For me, the most important is that in two consecutive weekends, Austria and here, I had a very good feeling."
Austria isn't really his track but, had he stayed out of trouble, there were two podiums, potentially quite comfortable podiums, on offer there in the race and the sprint.
But Aragon is his track. And while things are indeed likely to close in, just hitting par over the rest of the weekend should give Marquez his best chance this season of winning a race.
