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Carlo Pernat is right. What we're seeing is a "Marc Marquez minus something" in action. He lacks the arrogance with which, in the early years of his MotoGP career, he shredded his opponents. Even when he didn't have the most competitive bike of the lot, as they very well know in the Dovizioso-era Ducati.
And he still doesn't have it now, notwithstanding the controversy over the difference between this year's Ducati, the GP24, and the one from the year before, which he rides. But four years after the accident that stopped his upward climb in Jerez, we can say that he hasn't lost that magical spark.
There's really no argument. The MotoGP with Marc on the track is more fun. Chit-chat about the premier class being boring, where no one overtakes anymore, a slave to aerodynamics ... not happening.
Arguments about the absolute need to start up in front in order to have good races ... gone.
Controversy about the impossibility of preserving the front tire by starting in the belly of the pack, because keeping it at the right temperature is impossible ... vanished.
We're witnessing the return of the king, and little matters if he no longer had a crown on his head lately, and if someone stubborn pretended not to recognize him. With today's competition, we witnessed an athlete who returned to the platform and repositioned the bar in exactly the same place it was four years ago. And yes, we've had three world champions in the meantime: Mir, Quartararo, and Bagnaia. Excellent riders who, however, upon closer inspection, have never even directly confronted each other because in 2022, Pecco found Fabio on his path with a Yamaha in free fall.
On closer inspection, during the only season in which the French, Italian, and Spanish riders faced each other was in 2021, when they ended the World Championship in that order.
And what did we say during those years? That the MotoGP was becoming boring.
Of course, racing is racing, and you can't say that with Marc Marquez on the track today, the outcome of the Grand Prix could have been different those years. Asking that question isn't even logical. But those who can't recognize that the MotoGP with Marquez on the starting line is another spectacle, are either lying or just simply have their heads stuck in the past.
I read, again and again and again, about 'fans' talking about karma and 2015 and I ask myself: are you alright? Motorcycling - as Max Biaggi rightly said at the end of a fierce race in Hockenheim - "isn't classical music". It's hard rock.
If you're stuck on "cheering against" and pointing a finger at those who don't think the same thing like you do as fans, well, we don't know how to change your mind. It's beyond us.
During my time in the F1, I used to root for Senna, but I respected Prost. And as Alain recently said, minus the mutual shenanigans between those two, without each other, they wouldn't have been the gods we've always known.
