“93 Squared.”
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
When Marc Marquez was announced as a factory Ducati rider, we thought Bologna had its new landlord. Pecco Bagnaia had made Ducati his own. He made that 91-point ludicrous comeback against Fabio Quartararo in 2022, then defended the crown in 2023 with some erratic behaviour, but at its core, incredible speed.
The dynamic shifted a bit by year’s end. Marc Marquez had proved the magic was still there on a GP23, taking three victories in rain, shine and in Australia. And Jorge Martin finally became the consistent rider we knew he could be, and pointed his way to glory. There were two distant camps of thinking with Pecco – That he was already an all-time great and that he was valiantly beaten, with the other saying that being beaten by a customer, the first of its kind for 24 years, was a bad look for the brand.
I for one relished a Bagnaia/Marquez fight. Even without the ultimate glory, Bagnaia won half of 2024’s Grand Prix, just the sixth man in history to have an 11 win season. His speed is outstanding by any measure. But just what could Marc do on the best bike in the field, something we haven’t truly seen since maybe 2014?
This weekend felt like the most compelling answer to that question yet.
Marc Marquez has never gone well at Mugello. Hasn’t won there since 2014. It’s a track that never really suited his riding style on a Honda. Mugello is all about flow and sequencing corners and choosing lines, whereas Marquez’s speed came from stopping and starting, squaring off corners, making his speed on the front tyre and pointing it into bends. A lot of time during his Honda tenure, it was the smoother, apex-swinging Yamaha’s that were better.
It says it all that after winning the Sprint on Saturday from pole position, that even Marc himself was surprised at his pace. He’s consistently been wary of the threat of Bagnaia as a teammate, and his brother for being on a bike that I still think is a slightly more comfortable fit than the GP25 and its well documented front-end problems.
We saw it from Pecco’s side of the garage on Friday, swapping to the 340mm brake discs, with his “breakthrough” 355mm set from Aragon and its subsequent test not usable due to Mugello lacking many heavy braking zones. Even at his lowest point of the season so far, Pecco got better as the weekend continued, finding pace when it mattered most. Within half a tenth of pole position, and his best Sprint race of 2025 so far, his first podium in the format since Jerez back in May. There was genuine hope we were about to get a fierce battle for the win.
And for the first seven or so laps, we did. An absolute barney as Pecco Bagnaia, and both Marquez brothers, beat the piss out of each other. Three wide entering San Donato, shades of 2020 and Petrux’s1 special victory, crossing over at 220 miles per hour. Counter-attacks into Luco, Materazzi and using Busine as a slingshot. It was the single best fight we’d seen on track in 2025 so far, with no obvious winner for laps at a time. Eventually Marc Marquez would get to the front and do what he’d done so brilliantly all season, squeeze out those marginal gains, that two tenth advantage over his brother to win by a couple of seconds, with Marquez junior pulling away from Pecco.
The worst part was, Pecco couldn’t stay with the Marquez family. He was passed as clean as a whistle by Fabio Di Giannantonio with just two laps to go. Marquez was lapping in the low 47’s. Bagania dropped into the 49’s by race end. It was the personification of Bagnaia’s problems – It’s not like he’s spent the year as Marc’s cleanup man… that’s been his brother. And even if you ignore the valid argument that the GP24 is still a very competitive machine in the right climate – Italy was the first time Diggia beat Pecco clean this season. Bagnaia was the slowest man on the sport’s headlining bike.
With it, he drops to 110 points behind Marc, and we’re still only nine rounds in. Mugello was meant to be the banker, a track Pecco had made his own with five consecutive victories (Including the Sprints), and a genuine turn of attendance at Mugello again, with just as many flares, caps and T-Shirts in red, as they were in yellow. But this feels like a title-ending body blow. It’s not Pecco’s house anymore, he’s been turfed out by the new, noisy Spanish neighbours. All the people who were wary that Bagnaia flourished in a Marquez-less environment are quickly being proven right.
For the bigger-picture cynics, they’re also being proven right. Marc Marquez on arguably the best bike in the field is serving delicious meals. Alex has made life difficult for his bigger brother at times and has done an outstanding job of mitigating the title damage, but it still feels like beyond the freakish race at Silverstone, the only person who can beat Marc Marquez… is himself.
And no, I don’t care what some other prominent media figures have to say in the heat of the moment, there is no real evidence that Alex isn’t racing Marc hard. Anyone who knows how Marc races, knows he races everyone as hard as possible. He didn’t play favourites in his ascension to the top of the sport, from shoving Jorge Lorenzo out at his own corner in his third ever start, to slashing Dani Pedrosa’s traction control by accident at Aragon. It’s that mantra and belief in himself that’s made Marc better than anyone else on two wheels for the last decade now. Alex has had to play second fiddle when it’s mattered most, across 2025 so far.
From the tyre pressure management in Thailand, to the picking apart in Argentina, concentrating under pressure at Le Mans, or holding off the pack in Qatar. Alex’s greatest triumph in 2025, his home win in Jerez, came off a mistake from his bigger brother. Like a cold pint of beer in a desert, there’s no real hard evidence it exists, unless you want it to. And forgive me, but if you were watching that incredible battle at the start of this race, and your dominant thought was: “Alex is going soft on Marc”, in an era where we’ve been starved for action, I’m not sure you truly enjoy bike racing for what it is, even in its difficult F1-era.
Even if there was more concrete evidence of Alex’s softness in combat, quite frankly, I’d be more concerned if you were prepared to risk everything against your own flesh and blood. Let’s embrace empathy rather than reject it, even in some of the toughest sporting climates imaginable.
Marc is the Marc we’ve always known him to be. In an atmosphere where half of the crowd still can’t let 2015 go, this may well be one of his sweetest. An establishment of superiority over his valiantly fighting brother, and a ripping out of the heart for the man who saw his own back yard as his greatest comfort.
Win Number 93, for Number 93. For everyone else, may your woes be many, and your days, few.
The Lightning Round
Another lesson – Don’t boo Marc Marquez. It makes him stronger. Him sticking the Ducati flag at the back of Correntaio2 is going to be the shot of the year. Out of his 93 GP victories in all classes, today was his 67th in the Premier Class… Giacomo Agostini had 68.
One more Marquez stat – He has more points in JUST Grand Prix (165), than Pecco Bagnaia has in total (160).
Dear friend of the show Ciara described Keanu Reeves as “The Green Flag that Will Smith thinks he is”, and I think that was wonderful.
Delighted for Fabio Di Giannantonio to get his first GP podium of 2025. He’s had to work every bit as hard as Pecco has had with front end struggles, without the headlines, and he’s deserved a bright moment at his home race. And I loved the livery. Like someone puked a rainbow on the VR46 machine.
As much as I love special biking merch, Ducati charging £104 for that special Maroon jersey was a capitalist crime. Add another £20 in Taxes for us Brits given we’re now outside the EU3. We don’t need to be paying football money for sports gear in 2025. As for the livery itself, it’s better on track than in the photos, and I think they were very close to cooking here. The font was hard to make out and the sponsors a bit too intrusive. The Tricoloure blue wasn’t perfect either, the white winglets were silly, but
Franco Morbidelli is single-handedly pushing for MotoGP to inherit a penalty-point system. Multiple times he’s blocked people in qualifying, and now he’s completely taken Maverick Vinales out. Karmic justice came through given the Brazilian had to take a second long lap after missing the first, but he needs a serious talk in regards to his racecraft.
With the best Honda down in 11th, Aprilia still incredibly top heavy with Marco Bezzecchi, and Fabio Quartararo nursing a dislocated shoulder alongside a Yamaha that drops off a cliff when it loses pace, who is the sport’s second best manufacturer? Asking for a friend.
Remember the name – Maximo Quiles. That first win had been coming in Moto3, and given he’s from the Marquez camp, he’ll be one to watch in the future. And given his struggles in Moto2, delighted for Dennis Foggia to return to the podium, a genuinely sweet emotional moment for a man who Neil Hodgson said should have retired two weeks ago. Shame it was bogged down by Scott Ogden’s first competitive Moto3 race in years, and TNT Sports suddenly getting very Brexit in the commentary box.
The Verdict: 7/10 (Good) – A 10/10 race with a 5/10 finish as the bikes stretched out towards the end of the running. The first seven laps of this race were absolutely electric racing and incredible to watch, so much so Keanu Reeves could barely watch, just a shame it wasn’t sustainable. Watch the YouTube highlights for sure. See you in Assen.
