Just when it seemed the 2024 Ducati’s superiority was going to prolong Marc Marquez’s MotoGP win drought even further, he utterly dominated every moment of the Aragon Grand Prix weekend to take his first victories since leaving Honda for Gresini’s 2023-spec Ducati.
How big a warning was this to his 2025 works Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia?
Or should Marquez have actually got the job done sooner this year given some of the opportunities he’s had?
Our team give their verdicts.
A REMINDER OF HIS MOST DEVASTATING SKILL
Valentin Khorounzhiy
The Aragon GP didn't tell us much new about Marquez's 2024 or his 2025 - but was a worthwhile reinforcement of the conventional wisdom as to why he will be such a threat on the Ducati GP25.
We know - or at least we have a pretty good idea, given the other riders involved and being used as yardsticks - that the GP23 hasn't quite been a bike to fight for the title this year.
We also know that Marquez and Gresini have not been perfect this season - Marquez in terms of his risk-reward balance, Gresini in terms of helping him have the cleanest run through every given weekend.
But even if Marquez doesn't fully eradicate the errors on his side next year, and even if - and this is a big-big-big if, we can't really know yet - Bagnaia actually retains an edge of pace next year, Aragon showed why Marquez is such a threat.
It is his track, yes, but it's not just the track that made this win but rather the conditions. It was not going to be a five-second walkover if the recently-repaved, clearly 'raw' track hadn't been repeatedly soaked, washing away built-up grip.
But rather than paint it as a fluke it points to a key asset of Marquez's - he is not limited. There is no condition he fears. There is no weather you can introduce to the weekend that will knock him off his stride, pace-wise.
That doesn't impact every weekend - you can be slow in the rain or in mixed conditions or in general abnormally low grip and still win a title. And that's not to say Bagnaia, or other fellow frontrunners of the now, is slow or not versatile.
But it's advantage Marquez whenever conditions are just a little off. And that adds up. And it will add up in 2025.
A MASSIVE WARNING FOR 2025 RIVALS
Simon Patterson
If you were any other racer thinking about lining up on the 2025 MotoGP grid and you’d just watched the performance that Marc Marquez delivered all weekend long at Motorland Aragon, then you should probably be very, very concerned - because it came as monumental reminder that the six-time MotoGP champion very much still has it, even if it’s not been on display often recently.
His weekend was, to use a single word, dominant.
It was once again the Marquez of old, where he seemingly spends entire weekends walking on water and where his rivals know even before the lights go out that they’re going to be fighting for second place. We haven’t seen it since 2019, but by damn we saw it on Sunday.
Of course, it took a chain of things going his way to make it possible. But here’s the clincher: he’s been at a significant machinery disadvantage all year, as we know.
Greasy conditions, as always, were the great equaliser at the weekend, and as soon as it got back into the hands of the rider, then Marquez was able to do that thing that he does best.
Next year, when he’s lining up every weekend on the very best that Ducati can build with the GP25, there’s no reason why he can’t consistently deliver those performances all the way to title success.
MOTOGP NEEDED THIS
Matt Beer
I’d started to wonder if maybe we’d never get the real Marquez-Bagnaia showdown. That the moment one MotoGP great deposed another had happened off-stage when Marquez was injured.
The fact Marquez still wasn’t winning on a Ducati. The increasing frequency of crashes. Yes the GP23 was no GP24. But was that all of it? Could this not also be evidence that Marquez just wasn’t what he once was - to an extent that was going to make him vs Bagnaia in the Ducati garage an anti-climax.
No. Next year is going to be great. This wasn’t an anomalous win on a favourite circuit - Marquez has got enough favourite circuits where he over-reached earlier this year or just wasn’t ready to win on a Ducati.
This was proof of both the progress he made and how astonishing he is in low-grip conditions.
So the showdown is properly on.
And given the exodus of talented riders from Ducati that Marquez’s arrival in the works team has prompted, it needed to be as otherwise we were in for easy Bagnaia domination until at least the big 2027 rule change.
MARQUEZ'S 2025 TITLE BID BEGINS HERE
Oliver Card
"I have a plan,” declared Marc Marquez in May this year - just before snatching that 2025 factory Ducati seat from under Jorge Martin’s nose.
Winning is never an unremarkable achievement, even for those who dominate. To have won so much followed by a period of a thousand winless days must have felt like ten thousand to the six-time world champion. The drought has been quenched, potentially later than many had predicted but this felt like Marquez's weekend from the get go and he did not disappoint.
At the start of 2024 it felt inevitable that he'd find the top once again, but it has still taken a huge amount of hard work, racecraft and commitment to deliver at Aragon.
Momentum is crucial for Marquez building his 2025 campaign, and this highly successful weekend is just another step in his "plan". Get that winning feeling again. Rinse and repeat.
With winning a 2024 championship on the GP23 not exactly impossible now but less likely, Marquez's mind will no doubt have shifted focus to 2025 for his serious shot.
Whilst Bagnaia will have to devote significant energy to keeping Martin at bay, Marquez is free to revel in the glow of enjoying himself once again, the perfect preparation for his big chance next year on the factory Ducati.
