English
Italiano
After two pole positions and four victories, between the Sprint Race and the GP, Marc Marquez has a clear path leading to his ninth world title. If he achieves this, it's going to be a glorious goal that would allow him to join Valentino Rossi in the number of World Championships won. Now physically recovered and equipped with the best bike of the lot, the rider from Cervera holds all the cards to reach his goal. And Carlos Checa - who spoke during the Fast & Curious podcast - is at least convinced of this.
"Marc is the favorite," he said. "If he loses, it's going to be because of his mistakes, but I don't think he'll make many. In fact, I'm convinced that we'll see a third or half as many crashes from him, compared to what he got us used to. In my opinion, he's in a state of grace, as much as he is in his best years in Honda. Regarding Bagnaia's situation, I think he's enduring the Spanish rider's arrival on the team. He probably already feels beaten, but I hope there's going to be some battling."
And if Pecco already seems to be out of the picture, the same can be said for Martin, who's still home and injured. "He has five or six broken bones and two operations behind him. It won't be easy for him to be confirmed. I think what he needs to do is to focus everything on fully recovering physically and not think about the championship. He should consider the current championship as a pre-season ahead of 2026. The Aprilia is fast, so he'll have the technical means to be competitive next year," he stated.
Despite the current head-to-head between the Marquez brothers, according to the 52-year-old, we'll soon see the performance gap widen between the Lenovo and Gresini teams. "Changes have been made to the GP25 that I can't talk about, but I know that they'll lead to an advantage of three tenths," he said.
Compared to the past, today's bikes are much more complex, yet the rider can still have his say, unlike in the Formula 1. "The shape shifter and aerodynamics have led to big changes, but Marc is still the best. That something extra the rider could give, has shrunk. But there's still some margin, and Ducati is proof of that. Not all six Desmosedicis are at the same level. In any case, in 2025, the battle will be between the two Italian manufacturers, with Borgo Panigale having an advantage, since it can adapt to any condition," he admitted.
As mentioned, however, those on the bike continue to reign supreme. "One day, I got a chance to talk to one of the bosses at Honda Japan, and he told me that Stoner demanded twice as much as the others as a salary, but the bike he got took home the victory. So, absurdly, it allowed them to save money because redoing a MotoGP bike from scratch would be four times more expensive. Marquez is the same. He's the best. Casey in Ducati knew how to make a difference. I tried his bike myself and didn't understand how he could be so fast. It didn't even seem possible that it was the same bike. I rode in the Mugello, Portimão , and Valencia races, and our performance was very different, also because he was able to adapt very well to the Bridgestone tires, especially the front one. We can also say that the Ducati engineers sinned of presumption by making the chassis the fulcrum of the bike. This made them lose many years and also put Rossi in difficulty," he finally pointed out.
