(Almost) every Saturday and Sunday on the podium. Often on the top step. More than a MotoGP season, this one of Marc Márquez seems like a campaign of conquest in which the opponents - let's not call them enemies - are so bewildered that they are unable to organize a real reaction.
Resisting the advance, falling back without engaging in any real confrontation is only his brother Alex, who, however, after nine races accuses a 40-point gap. That's still better than what has been achieved by Pecco Bagnaia who, despite a testosterone-filled reaction in the first laps of the Italian Grand Prix, at Mugello, his track, also missed out on the third step of the podium, which went after a good comeback to Fabio Di Giannantonio, and now sees his teammate 110 points distant.
Were there a new Plutarch interested in writing a 'Life of Marquez' he might use the same words as the Greek historian - Veni. Vidi. Vici - to describe Marc Marquez's victory at Mugello.
And the question is one: was it more of a (magnificent) victory for Marc or a (bitter) defeat for Francesco? We wonder because the answer to the question will probably also determine the rest of the championship.
For goodness sake: we are not even at the halfway mark, with thirteen rounds still to be contested around the world, but Marquez's advance in Ducati territory shows no signs of any cracks. So while at Borgo Panigale they continue to utter like a mantra the 'we must help Bagnaia regain confidence on the front and in his riding', the atomic ant takes no prisoners: by now the box is his and those who expected from this season a head-to-head duel between Marc and Pecco for possession of those 20 square meters of ground, are wandering around bewildered wondering if what they are witnessing is real.
That's because Marc, like a Duplantis in great form has set the bar high where his opponents can't reach, downsizing them.
"We need to use nicer words for opponents in trouble," Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali said to us in recent days, but we fear that pouring oil on burns is not the right medicine.
Here we are faced with an Achilles who challenged Hector under the walls of Troy. A demigod furious with those who, for the past three years have usurped his land, but Achilles-Marquez has healed from his heel injury and when everyone gave him up for dead he got up and attached Pecco, the only hero he could find, to his chariot - since Quartararo is not of the same match and Martin is not there - dragging him into the dust.
The result now is that although he has not yet regained it, Marc Márquez is screaming loudly that he is the only one legitimized to sit on the MotoGP throne. Today's duel, between Marquez and Bagnaia, was a clangour of swords and shields but Marc did not want to hurt Pecco, only to subdue him. Taming him.
Whether he succeeded we will already see from next week because every opportunity is a good one, from those who are defeated, to repeat that the real world championship has yet to begin. The problem is: from which Grand Prix?