Six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez has finally won a race on a Ducati, more than half a season since deserting Honda mid-contract and heading to satellite team Gresini.
But, with his first win coming not in the main event but in Saturday's sprint, there’s very much a sense of unfinished business emanating from him as Marquez tries to keep calm ahead of Sunday’s second outing of the Aragon Grand Prix weekend.
That’s because, rather than easing the pressure on him to finally return to the top step of the podium for the first time in almost three years, Saturday’s success has had the opposite effect, piling on the pressure.
Of course, pressure should come as nothing new for Marquez, especially at the Motorland Aragon circuit only a hundred miles from his hometown of Cervera. One of the championship’s anti-clockwise circuits, it has, like others that run left instead of right, been somewhere where Marquez has dominated in the past - and a track where he was expected to win at this season.
Yet that expectation also held for the Circuit of the Americas and the Sachsenring, and on both occasions he came up short.
However, while various weekend circumstances might have worked against him in America and Germany, he has been considerably more fortunate at Aragon so far, with the newly-repaved track providing the sort of slippery, greasy surface that plays right into the hands of Marquez’s skill honed through years of flat-track training.
He spent the Friday downplaying his chances, though, adamant (at least publicly) that title contenders Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin would close the gap to him on Saturday - something supported by all available evidence right up until heavy rain blew in after practice.
Dumping dust and sand on the desert circuit and washing away rubber laid down on Friday, it meant that Saturday morning was even more treacherous than 24 hours previously, something that Marquez capitalised on to take pole position by the biggest margin since 2019.
He then weathered a lock-up at Turn 1 and a mistake at Turn 12 on the opening lap, finding his groove and pulling away with ease to arrive first at the chequered flag after 11 laps of the sprint.
“I enjoyed more the second places in the sprints than the victory,” he admitted when asked by The Race what the emotions were after the win.
“I feel the pressure. I feel like tomorrow I have a big opportunity to finish my job, to finish my good weekend in the perfect way.
"I’m super happy, but at the same time I’m super focused to try and continue at the same level tomorrow.”
However, there remains caution in his assessment of his chances for Sunday - even though he sounds more confident now than he perhaps did on Friday about seeing off Bagnaia and Martin.
“I know and I predict,” he added, “that with better conditions on the race track, Pecco and Martin will be closer and it will be more difficult.”
At the same time, both Bagnaia and Martin sound considerably less sure about their chances of making it a fight on Sunday.
"He's doing four-five degrees more [of lean angle] than me in some corners, without losing the front," Bagnaia told MotoGP.com. "He's the only one able to do it.
"It's something very difficult to understand because it's just him that's doing it, no other Ducati rider.
"But we already know what Marc can do. For tomorrow we will try a step."
"I never thought that victory was possible today. I knew that Marc was a bit better," admitted Martin.
"Maybe tomorrow with the medium [rear] I can even... close the gap to Marc."
Martin said Marquez seemed to be feeling the wear of the front tyre much less, and making a "big difference" through the second part of the 'reverse Corkscrew' and the left-hander right after it, as well as the final corner.
"For the moment he's the strongest, he's the favourite.
"I will try to do my best and if it's second or third or fourth, it's okay."
