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The advantage that Ducati has in fielding eight Desmosedicis on the track appeared clear last Sunday, in India, at the Buddh circuit: while in fact it was two bikes from Borgo Panigale that crossed the finish line first - and there would have been three without Bagnaia's crash - Honda and Yamaha reappeared in the top positions.
A third place in the Sprint for Marc Marquez, and a 5th and a 3rd place for Joan Mir and Fabio Quartararo in the Grand Prix demonstrated that with the same data - that is, no data given that the track was new for everyone - the two Japanese manufacturers significantly improved their performance.
In a certain sense, the Honda team did even more than Yamaha given that Marquez was in the fight for the podium before the crash that caused him to lose just over eight seconds. Then he recovered from 16th to 9th place.
However, Marc got on the podium in the Sprint and that hadn't happened since the sprint in Portimao last March, during the first round of the season; for Honda, the last decent results came at Austin with Rins' second place on Saturday and the subsequent victory on Sunday.
There is nothing mysterious about this resurrection of both manufacturers. Just a circuit without references, without data, where the talent of the riders counts more than the performance of the bike.
Another important fact, of course, is that Buddh is a "very similar" track to Austin, where both manufacturers achieved their last good results.
In view of the regulation change expected for the end of 2026, but which in all likelihood could be anticipated by some information this weekend in Motegi, this will convince the FIM and Dorna (not necessarily in this order) even more to review some aspects: in addition to the number of wildcards, in fact, a maximum number of teams 'served' by a single manufacturer could be introduced. Obviously starting from 2027 when, in all likelihood, KTM will also have six bikes on the starting grid. We've been talking about it ever since Dorna refused to allow KTM to increase its number to six bikes, with the excuse of keeping the two places left vacant by Suzuki's withdrawal free just for an official manufacturer.
It’s something new that does not bother Ducati which has repeatedly announced that it wants/can reduce the number of Desmosedicis fielded in the world championship without any problems.
Yamaha, on the other hand, will have to work hard from next year to get back to the minimum number of bikes, four, so as not to have too many problems of lack of data, something it currently suffers from. The Iwata factory, since Aprilia also became affiliated with the Cryptodata RNF team, is in fact the only one left with only the official team without having a satellite team.
