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Twenty-two consecutive wins, a record equaled by Honda, should be a number to celebrate, but today in Ducati judging by the faces the happiness at Alex Marquez's victory was not on the limiter.
The fact that the Team Gresini rider - and Marc's brother - prevented Fabio Quartararo and Yamaha from doing a reset and forcing the Rossa to start over was a minimal goal achieved, but one that did not allow the Borgo Panigale-based manufacturer and its munificent Chinese sponsor Lenovo to celebrate much more.
Indeed, the memory of the world title lost last year to Jorge Martin and Pramac, another satellite team, is still too fresh. And even though the Ducati riders are all family, in our opinion - warning: it's merely our thought - being beaten by another team did not give them all that much pleasure.
In the crosshairs, of course, was the mistake of Marc Márquez, who without the crash would have won the Grand Prix at a canter, but above all the third place of Pecco Bagnaia, who never attacked his two opponents and only came alive in the very brief duel with his teammate.
For Dall'Igna it must have been unacceptable. Not least because when Marquez re-entered, with the bike surely aerodynamically inefficient, he was 22nd at 19.388s from the leader, and finished 12th at 20.890s from his brother. That means having lapped overall fasterer than both Fabio and Pecco. Despite the overtaking.
Of course, after just five Grands Prix it is too early to wrap our heads around it, but ahead in the championship is again a satellite team, Team Gresini, with Alex Marquez, albeit only one point ahead of Marc.
The philosophy of having a dream team in which the mistake of one corresponds to the victory of the other therefore is not working. As often happens in teams where there is no defined hierarchy.
The risk - remember the collision between Dovizioso and Iannone on the last lap of the 2016 Argentine Grand Prix? - is to have one of the two riders suffering from internal rivalry giving 110 percent only when he has to stay ahead of his teammate, but failing to materialize his 100 percent when it comes to bringing the result to his team. Which is what happened today.
Mind you, Pecco does teh right thing in not wanting to make mistakes, the missed 2024 result still stings, but today at Jerez he should have been aiming for the big target and instead after five Grands Prix he is 20 points down on the provisional world championship leader, Alex Marquez, who certainly should not have been his benchmark.
He is thinking too much, Bagnaia, about his former rival, Jorge Martin and the outcome of 2024, but this is a different season and he cannot believe he can always play catch-up waiting for Marc Márquez's mistakes.
He said after the race today that he doesn't feel like pushing until he has the situation under control and the GP25 in his hands, but he's just lucky that Marc is Marc and despite everything he still can't control his untamed but definitely exaggerated spirit.
A Marquez who does a Bagnaia could have the luxury of winning the world championship by running on the back foot, because as Kevin Schwantz rightly said in Austin, only Marc can beat Marc, but what championship would we have?
In the end, fans of the MarcTian - and his detractors - we should all be happy and united by one fact: he is making this otherwise predictable world championship spicy and unpredictable.
Photo: @Pierluca Brunetti
