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At the Red Bull Ring Davide Tardozzi predicted a Marc Marquez victory before the end of the year. The reality, however, is that winning this year is proving to be particularly difficult, so much so that out of 11 Grands Prix 10 have been won by the factory Ducatis of Bagnaia (7), Martin (2) and Bastianini (1), while Aprilia scored a success in Austin with Maverick Vinales.
The dominance of the GP24 is plain for all to see, although there is a lot of discussion among the fans because of the differences with the previous model, the GP23. The reality, however, is that so far no GP23 has managed to stand on the top step of the podium, either in the Sprint or in the Grand Prix. Marc Marquez has to his credit 5 second places in the Sprints (Portimao, Austin, Le Mans, Barcelona, Mugello) and three second places in the GPs (Jerez, Le Mans and Sachsenring), while Alex Marquez and Bezzecchi have only a third place each in the Sachsenring and Jerez GPs respectively.
The explanation, with so much talent on the track, is that with the GP23 and the new Michelin rear tires with more grip, it is difficult to turn the bike with the rear. A style that apparently both Marc and Bez like.
In reality especially Marquez has always downplayed this aspect, saying on several occasions that he has a winning bike on his hands. And that might well be the case, only that there are three evo version bikes in front of him - Franco Morbidelli has one too, but after his pre-World Championship crash he is still not on the pace - so there must be a reason.
The most immediate one, of course, is that Pecco and Jorge are making all the difference, pushing each other to the limit so much so that at this point in the championship the difference between them is just 5 points. But it must be said that Martin is still there this year because in the first part of the championship he was at his best in the Sprint races.
Behind these two both Bastianini and Marc Marquez are not expressing themselves at their best, although Enea after a below-par start is recovering and is currently third in the world championship, 61 points from his teammate and 22 ahead of his pursuer, Marquez.
The latter, for his part, on his debut with Ducati is - and it could not be otherwise - the fans: his detractors claim that he is no longer what he used to be, forgetting the practically four years of stop with consequent four operations and the change of bike, his fans on the other hand compare his performance with the other riders on the same bike, where Marc can boast an 88 point advantage over Diggia, 94 on his brother Alex and 119 on Bezzecchi equal to Morbidelli who, however, has the latest evolution of the Desmosedici.
A few mistakes, like the one last Sunday where Marc failed to insert the lowering device wasting his front row start and a few too many crashes, have meant that Marquez is still in contention for the world championship, but only virtually, like Enea after all. The average performance says this.
Yet Tardozzi himself, regarding the results of the eight-time world champion, made a revealing declaration: "we are not blind," proving that the telemetry data show a different reality from the standings. Also because only Ducati knows the real difference in performance, if any, between the GP24 and the GP23.
The Austrian Grand Prix, however, gave us a pretty good example of Marc's performance.
For most of the race, the Spaniard from Team Gresini was able to lap in 1m30s and 1m29s, even in traffic. After a bad start, it only took him four laps to break into the top 10.
He then proceeded to pick his way through his rivals, climbing up to sixth place on lap 10 of the race, losing two behind his brother Alex and three behind Miller. Passing then the identical Ducati GP23 of Marco Bezzecchi was more difficult: it took him a good six laps, but then overtaking Binder's KTM for fourth place was a formality.
At that point it was lap 18. Marquez held his breath for two, at which point he started to lap faster than the leading pair, Bagnaia and Martin. From lap 22 to lap 27 he caught up not only on Pecco, but also on Enea. Between laps 20 and 25, Marquez was the fastest rider in the group, lapping a full three tenths faster than leader Bagnaia. While Bagnaia's pace dropped to 1m31, Marquez was still able to turn in a mid-to-high time of 1m30. During this time he was also able to reduce the gap to the third place finisher, Enea Bastianini, from 8.7 to just 6 seconds. Although it must be said, of course, that the trio more than anything else were defending their position. It was not in a battle. It would, in fact, have been a rather boring race, albeit one fought on record times, without the Atomic Ant's comeback.
At that point, however, the grand prix was practically over, and conscious of previous mistakes, including the one in the Sprint when he was under the illusion that he could go for Bagnaia, Marc was content with the placing.
It is clear that with a good start the times say that Marc Marquez would have been in the fight for the podium. Some add that he could have even been fighting for second place, but what is certain is that we would have seen a different race, because there would have been a fourth factor.
Indeed, Marquez's gap to Bagnaia remained stable from lap 18 to lap 28. But in the same period with his GP23 Marc gained 1.5s on second-placed Martin and two seconds on Bastianini.
As always, Marquez shielded himself when the race was over: "I can't say I could have stayed with Bagnaia and Martin," he explained, "At the end of the GP I was faster, but at the beginning I was slower. Maybe my opponents used more tire at the beginning than at the end."
Who knows. Still, we definitely missed some overtaking attempts at the knife-edge, typical of Marc, and who knows if to safeguard his position Martin would have risked as much as the hungry rider from Cervera. We will never know, but we have high hopes of seeing the next installment soon, at Aragon at the end of the month.
In the end what we are interested in is the spectacle, and there is no doubt that the thriller laps of Pecco and Jorge keep the adrenaline up in the first few times around, but what excites more than anything else are the overtakes. And from the beginning of the championship to now, Marquez has done a lot of them. Definitely more than crashes. Maybe Ducati hired him for the amount of TV minutes?
