Pace Analysis Tips Mark Marquez Advantage is not as great as his rivals fear

Just a few rounds ago, Penn was circling the Aragon Grand Prix as a circuit where Mark Marquez was about to win his victory at the factory Ducati in 2025.

However, Ducati will be coming to Aragon GP, ​​behind consecutive defeats in MotoGP for the first time since 2022.

The wet French Grand Prix pushed Mark Marquez into a cautious approach two weeks before his crash from the Spanish Grand Prix. The British Grand Prix was running dry, especially in cold and windy conditions, striding the Ducatis, but the chaotic Sunday race opened the door to another defeat.

If Silverstone was undoubtedly the worst circuit for Mark Marquez’s riding style, the fact that he won the third and extended championship lead is calming the nerves, especially with his limited physical mobility on his right side, on his right side, especially since an arm injury five years ago.

Ducati will sigh with even more peace of mind when they saw both practice sessions at Aragon in Mark Marquez, Aragon on Friday at Marquez, as it appears that normality in 2025 has finally resumed.

At one stage of both sessions, two seconds or more from the field, Mark Marquez saw a form that preceded the usual dominant Grand Prix victory. Memories of Aragon from last year. He flattened the competition at the GP23 spec Ducati, earning his first Sunday victory at Desmocecci.

It was able to roll out fast laps from off, and there was tints of Friday 2024 weekend in the Spanish desert. However, the circumstances that allowed Ducati riders to maintain his advantages through the 2024 event (continuous overnight rain, fresh asphalt) are not something he can rely on this time.

And while he has appeared to be his favorite since Friday, that’s probably not unexpected. In a repeat Sunday mistake, he has mentioned that he is talking about the need to iron this weekend.

Powerful used tire pace gives Mark Marquez a small edge of Aragon motogp

When Mark Marquez jumped around 1M46.397, he quickly avoided him second from the field as he was able to top Friday’s practice session at Aragon. Gresini’s Alex Marquez will try several times before knocking down its advantages to 0.204S, which ended like a checkered flag.

His ability to instantly feel the conditions and produce lap times will help Elder Marquez’s brother become Paul on Saturday, while also putting him in the best position to get his seventh sprint victory in the eighth round.

However, it is Sunday that holds the biggest question mark. Mark Marquez’s speed is not questionable, nor is it a preservation of his tires. However, he crashed from the lead of the American Grand Prix. He fell from third place while in a position to compete for a victory at the Spanish Grand Prix. And he was spared only from his third crash while leading the British Grand Prix with the Red Flag for another incident.

He vows to change the way he manages Sundays, but he won’t say what that actually means.

He led at a used tire pace averaged 1m47.725 in the medium rear, setting 1m47.1m47.1m on the 13th lap and final lap for that tire. It gave him a much more convenient advantage over his Ducati rivals, namely Alex Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia.

Alex Marquez ran roughly the same distance in the medium on a representative lap with roughly the same sample count, and his pace was good at 1M48.206. By a margin of just under 0.5 seconds, his brother will take almost one second per lap in the race scenario.

Gresini’s rider felt that his feelings on asphalt were “even stranger” than last year, when the surface was renewed. It prevents him from truly eating to the advantages of Mark Marquez, as he needs to find a better sense. However, he also believes that he still couldn’t show his real race pace as something went wrong with his GP24 during the afternoon session.

Bagnaia’s pace is beyond the short sample run, but not far from Alex Marquez at 1m48.312. He revealed on Friday that he struggled with front locks, sometimes “30 meters locks” along the way to the turn. Already, getting the terms with teammate Mark Marquez would be a tall order, but there could be a fight against Alex Marquez.

For now, Mark Marquez has his main title rival in ARM length. And it appears he already sees himself as his biggest threat.

“Everything comes more naturally here, but you also need extra focus to avoid making mistakes,” he said. “When I feel better, I feel better and try to exaggerate corners where I can make mistakes. I keep focused all the time, but not when I feel it, but I need to push the lap sometimes, but not when I feel it, but I don’t have to make sure I don’t feel it.

Expectations for KTM backing after strong Aragon on Friday

The tone of voice coming from KTM camp after the difficult British Grand Prix was one of total despair. For the Austrian manufacturer’s stables, they struggle with low grip conditions that have fuelled another nightmare event in Aragon.

However, Friday really couldn’t be any better for KTM. For the first time since the Catalonia Grand Prix last year, we were able to pass three riders directly into Q2. Maverick Vinall actually regained his status as the RC16’s major rider overall, third in fact, but Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder weren’t too far from fifth and seventh.

Acosta was a bit defeated to explain why KTM is so strong. This is because it’s the worst grip of the season. In theory, KTM should not be faster under these conditions. He thinks, “This is this super low grip, everyone’s level goes down, we’re getting higher.”

As the table above shows, Acosta’s pace was decent, but he didn’t put a lot of raps in the medium. Also, Venares didn’t actually have many typical raps in Medium Ria, but did a few tours on used tours. Only from the 2-lap samples, 13 laps were 1M47.830S.

Vinall believes he is “not far from Alex Marquez’s pace, but thinks his fight is realistic between the third and sixth at the Grand Prix.

“At this point, I think it’s third to sixth on paper, but even from Alex, we’re not far – maybe 0.1 seconds,” he said. “It’s something we need to improve. I always say to my peers, “This isn’t too bad, we only need 0.1 seconds. Stay calm and do our job.”

The management of the rearware is that Venares can reach the podium on the Qatar road this year and remain in Jeres’ top five. Acosta has the previous KTM Podium foam on the Aragon Form last year, so he knows how to move low grip surfaces into strong results.

Given the pressure on KTMs by riders, we can find a kind of step forward. Bringing this form into the rest of the weekend format will help you calm things down a bit and dig into the real solutions you need to solve the problem.

The MotoGP Japan’s battle will move on the Honda path early in Aragon’s weekend

It seems unlikely that Yamaha’s three consecutive pole position executions will continue this weekend at Aragon after the top M1 was 15th at the end of practice. Fabio Cartalaro, who is taking all these poles, had been down all the way down the 18th as he spent the day fighting with a lack of rear grip on his bike.

Annoyed for Yamaha, it’s sitting down and Honda has to watch Excel in the main areas it’s been struggling with – mainly the rear grip.

Joan Mill ranked sixth in the LCR Run Honda, but he ranked Honda four times on his actual timesheets with a 1M46.953, the same as Maverick Vinall. Encouraged, both paces are now firmly in their fight against the final podium spot.

Honda’s format is somewhat similar to that of KTM. Because grip conditions are very poor for everyone, what was usually a weakness has not proven to be a major disadvantage. However, the Mir was a very complementary to the RC213V and the work Honda has done.

“In the last few races, I think we were very close to quitting this result, but for some reason we couldn’t put it together,” he said. “Today we’ve improved the grip on the rear of the bike a little. It was enough to get results. So it’s not a coincidence, not surprising, it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time.”

Zarco has already shown that Honda can score the podium in dry conditions after running second in the UK Grand Prix. But Mir carrying this form throughout the rest of the weekend will boost his own self-confidence after a year of crashes scattered, solidifying his position in Honda’s current pecking order…