Marquez vs Bagnaia – Who seems most ominous after epic showdown?

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Was defeating Marc Marquez for the Spanish Grand Prix win a vital psychological victory for reigning MotoGP champion Pecco Bagnaia that proved he’s nonetheless Ducati’s prime canine and best-placed to go on and take one other title?

Or was the actual fact Marquez got here so near beating him on a year-old satellite tv for pc bike and in solely his fourth race weekend on a Ducati an indication of rather more to return and proof he’s going to topple Bagnaia?

Neither of them truly leads the championship proper now – that’s nonetheless Jorge Martin regardless of his crash from first place at Jerez.

However which of Bagnaia and Marquez has most to be glad about after their epic battle?

Listed below are our MotoGP panel’s ideas.

Make no mistake – Marquez is within the combine

Valentin Khorounzhiy

Marc Marquez minimize a deliriously delighted determine on the Spanish Grand Prix podium – try these strikes! – and he deserves it given a primary grand prix podium at Gresini Ducati was each a selected milestone he had chased and a web optimistic for his championship place.

However the velocity at Jerez was there for him and his more and more trusty GP23 to deliver house all 37 factors – and that is probably not one thing that you would’ve stated earlier this 12 months.

On the Circuit of the Americas, the place you’ll usually count on a Marquez walkover, he was positively not the quickest rider (hey, Maverick Vinales) and there was an argument that he possibly wasn’t even the quickest Ducati, not less than relative to the GP24s whose tempo ebbed and flowed.

Possibly this might’ve been the case on a standard Jerez weekend, too. In any case, Bagnaia was the one who rewrote the lap file on Friday. However combined circumstances had put Marquez ready to begin each races from the entrance, and in each instances he had the tempo to capitalise.

It is one factor that he was the quickest rider within the dash, within the sketchy circumstances that finally did catch Marquez out. It is one other that he appeared quickest within the rather more simple race, solely let down by a probably overly-tentative (however possibly rightly so) preliminary few laps, colored by the recollections of each his personal Saturday crash and the falls he had seen within the Moto2 race.

What’s necessary is that Marquez was already very fast from session one. As he himself put it, he has now made sufficient of a step ahead as a Ducati rider to the place he can lastly begin tailoring his GP23 to himself relatively than tailoring himself to the GP23. Which is how he flashed race win-level tempo in first Friday apply already, and appeared to substantiate it at each step of the weekend.

We have seen Marquez be magic at Jerez earlier than – he was going to completely obliterate the sphere within the 2020 opener earlier than his preliminary mistake and subsequent career-altering crash – however it’s not essentially a ‘calling card’ monitor for him.

This weekend, it appeared like one. And it introduced him nearer to the championship lead.

This isn’t a Martin vs Bagnaia rematch. Proper now, Marquez has to be in that image, too.

Bagnaia nonetheless has one thing Marquez lacks

Simon Patterson

Marquez might need began Sunday’s race (and, actually Saturday’s dash) wanting just like the man who had the most effective tempo – however that’s not the expectation he got here into the weekend with, as he continues to adapt to the Ducati.

Bagnaia, however, is carrying a heavy weight: he’s the reigning world champion, using the most effective bike on the grid, and thus far this 12 months has been relatively conclusively crushed by a man on the identical machine in satellite tv for pc colors. Strain has been on him to enhance – and boy did he ever do this at Jerez.

It seems like that enchancment has come by fixing the most important drawback that has thus far plagued him this season: a chatter challenge introduced on by Michelin’s new and improved building of tyre compound.

Now that’s lastly beneath management, Bagnaia is theoretically again the place he ended the 2023 season: on a machine that’s working precisely the way in which he needs it to. And if we’ve discovered something concerning the two-time world champion previously years, it’s that when his bike is working properly, it’s very exhausting to beat him.

He leaves Jerez with each momentum and confidence, and that’s a really harmful mixture provided that one in all his rivals was conclusively crushed by him on Sunday whereas the opposite watched on from the gravel entice.

Bagnaia nonetheless has the sting – however he’s going to wish it

Matt Beer

Outbraking each Martin and Marco Bezzecchi in a single implausible down-the-outside transfer and defeating Marc Marquez in a ferocious elbow-to-elbow victory battle on Marquez’s house floor. Two issues numerous MotoGP riders aren’t going to handle to do of their complete profession. Bagnaia did each in the identical massively vital afternoon.

All through the victory combat it felt like Bagnaia was the one who had a tiny margin in hand, whereas Marquez was having to overreach. Bagnaia appeared like he might see the strikes coming and knew how he’d reply. That late quickest lap simply when he wanted to interrupt Marquez’s problem was elegant.

His very first MotoGP win – not even three years in the past – got here in a equally fierce combat with Marquez at Aragon that proved Bagnaia’s racecraft credentials past any doubt and turbocharged his subsequent rise to a number of champion standing. Jerez 2024 felt simply as vital.

And but… he’s the one on the top-spec works bike. The one who’s spent his complete MotoGP profession on Ducatis and grown up with the manufacturing facility’s improvement route. Marquez continues to be very early in his Ducati studying. And Bagnaia’s having to work this difficult to fend Marquez off already.

Bagnaia rode like a MotoGP nice at Jerez. However he now is aware of he can’t afford to do something much less as a result of there’s one other a type of who’s going to provide him an increasing number of problem over the months forward.