Marc and Alex Márquez were once again in a class of their own at the MotoGP Argentine GP, where Pecco Bagnaia’s struggles have him contemplating a return to his 2024 Ducatis. Meanwhile the real heroes of the weekend were Honda and Johann Zarco
Marc Márquez and Alex Márquez (left) took the top two steps of the podium for the fourth time in four races on Sunday, joined by VR46’s Franky Morbidelli, scoring his first podium since May 2021
Crew chiefs obviously get to see exactly how their motorcycles work and Carchedi was immediately stunned by the secrets of the Desmosedici, specifically how much torque the bike could use exiting corners without losing traction.
“If Marc ever gets on one of these, no one will see which way he went,” he said during 2023 pre-season testing, unaware that nine months later he would start a partnership with Márquez for the 2024 season.
“One more time we start with the exact same bike set-up and it’s working!”
Of course, Márquez didn’t disappear into the distance last year, because his Gresini GP23 and Michelin’s latest rear slick weren’t a good marriage. The former MotoGP king struggled throughout, as did fellow GP23 riders Alex Márquez, Marco Bezzecchi and Di Giannantonio. But he struggled less so, winning three grands prix along the way.
A year spent riding a bike that doesn’t do what you want it to do, so you have to find ways to ride around problems, can do wonders for your riding. Thus when the Márquez brothers climbed aboard GP24s at last November’s season-closing Barcelona tests they were immediately fast and – even more importantly – comfortable.
After the GP23, the GP24 seems easy. And that’s one big reason why MotoGP’s history-making siblings scored a clean sweep at the first two rounds: Marc on pole position (aboard his GP24.9, or whatever you want to call it) and winning the sprint and grand prix in Thailand and Argentina, Alex second every time.
Sunday’s start and the Márquez brothers are first and second into the first corner
Dorna/MotoGP
This is the worry for the rest of the grid, that Marc and his crew are making it look so easy. And so much so that he’s laughing about it!
“One more time we start [the weekend] with the exact same bike set-up and it’s working,” he said on Friday, chuckling. “The bike is predictable – this is one of the most important points.”
So predictable in fact, that the results are getting predictable. Just like Carchedi said they would, because when your motorcycle is working so well, you don’t waste time fixing problems, so you focus on making its strong points even stronger.
In Marc’s case this means tweaking the Ducati’s engine-braking software to his liking, because this is where the best riders make the difference now, using the rear slick to help them get the bike stopped and turned into corners. The tyre’s massive grip is obviously an advantage in this area, but it can also cause problems if the rider and his engineers don’t get their technique and settings exactly right. It’s a knife edge, as Pecco Bagnaia has found to his cost.
“I’m a little bit special on engine braking,” said Marc on Saturday. “My electronics guys are working super-hard to change some parameters for my riding style here.”
Marc keeps saying that Alex will, occasionally, beat him this year and he now says his little bro will be his main rival for the title. But then he’s always big-upped Alex, saying he’s the fastest of Julià and Roser Márquez’s issue and describing him as a diesel engine to his petrol engine. In other words, Marc gets up to full speed quickly, while Alex takes a little more time to reach peak rpm.
At Termas on Sunday the twice world champion was definitely closer to matching the eight-time world champion – just 1.3 seconds down, a difference of five-hundredths of a second per lap, even though he isn’t backed up by the army of electronics engineers that look after Marc’s zeroes and ones.
Marc Márquez was once again in a class of his own – and he’s most likely not even close to his own limits at the moment
Dorna/MotoGP
But still not close enough, in speed and strategy. Marc had him all worked out, letting him lead much of the way, so he would use his tyres more, then attacking in the final laps when tyres get weaker, so Marc gets stronger.
“Being in front of Marc I was using a little more rear tyre,” Alex explained. “When he tried to overtake me and went a little wide [so Alex retook the lead], I said, OK, now I push. I did a 38.3 and he did a 38.2, so I said, OK, it will finish like this! I couldn’t go at that rhythm – I was really on the limit and not feeling really safe. During the last part of the race he’s able to be on the limit and be really comfortable on that limit – all the other riders struggle in that part of the race.”
The only rider to get close to the brothers was Franky Morbidelli, finally resurrected after four years in the wilderness to score his first podium since May 2021.
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The VR46 rider never lost his riding skills during that time, just the ability (and sometimes even the will) to consistently transfer them to the asphalt.
It’s great to see Morbidelli back at the front, because he’s such an unusual motorcycle racer. He seems more hippy than speed freak – MotoGP’s very own Jimi Hendrix.
“This P3 feels amazing and we take it, big time,” grinned the Italian-Brazilian, one of the few riders that raced with the soft-option rear tyre. “I knew we’d have a drop [in grip], so I tried to hang on tight, just like those last four years and it worked. I’m happy I was able to drink that nice prosecco all the way down.”
Marc’s factory Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia took the chequered flag in fourth and was already deep in his post-race technical debriefing as independent team riders Morbidelli and Alex quaffed prosecco on the podium. Factory riders aren’t supposed to get beaten by indie riders but Bagnaia has already had to swallow that four times this season.
LCR Honda’s Zarco was the star of the weekend – here he chases Bagnaia, with Morbidelli, Binder, Di Giannantonio, Acosta and Joan Mir behind him
LCR Honda
And getting beaten so solidly by your factory team-mate isn’t great either. Tough times for the twice world champion, because factory team-mates don’t only compete to score the most points, they also compete to get the factory’s technical masterminds focusing on their side of the garage. Right now, there’s no doubt which rider Gigi Dall’Igna loves the most.
There was one positive for Bagnaia – his fourth place was his best-ever finish at Termas, a racetrack that has always befuddled him, even in Moto2 and Moto3.
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Bagnaia’s current struggles mean he may well switch to the bikes he raced last year from next week’s US round. Both factory riders rejected Ducati’s 2025 engine and chassis during pre-season testing, instead racing with what Bagnaia called a GP24.9. On Friday at Termas he called his latest spec a 24.7 and right now he may be asking factory staff to prepare his 2024 bikes for COTA.
Bagnaia is struggling most with the rear tyre in corner entry, so he’s on the wrong side of that knife edge between having the tyre gripping as he wants and sliding as he wants. Therefore it makes sense to go back to the exact machine he raced last year, if only to see if that solves the problem.
“I’m still missing something – the control of the rear tyre,” he said after Sunday’s race. “It’s something strange, considering the bike is similar to last year’s, so maybe at the next race I’ll be to back to a complete bike from last year.
“This isn’t the worst situation I’ve been in – the first part of last year was worse. The difference is that this season I have a more consistent rival and Marc won’t make any mistakes. Recovering 31 points is already a long journey, so we have to solve our problems as soon as possible and then get back some points.”
VR46 celebrating Morbidelli’s first podium with the team, which was also his first since the 2021 Spanish GP
VR46
Of course, the race was another Ducati steamroller job – the first five home all rode Desmosedicis – and no one is at all surprised that Ducati is already running away with the 2025 constructors’ prize.
What is a massive surprise is that the manufacturer that finished last in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 constructors’ championships is running second in this year’s title race.
Honda and Johann Zarco were therefore the stars of the 2025 Argentine GP.
“It’s been an almost dream weekend compared to what we lived last year”
The Frenchman scored Honda’s first front-row start since Marc defected to Ducati and came close to its first top-three finish since then, taking fourth in Saturday’s sprint.
“It’s been an almost dream weekend compared to what we lived last year,” said Zarco on Sunday. “I tried everything to be on the podium. Two times I made nice overtakes on Pecco but he was defending well and I was struggling with vibration at Turn 11, so I wasn’t able to attack at 12 and 13, where I felt strong, so I had a kind of yoyo with Pecco, and my front tyre got so hot.”
On the final lap he succumbed to Di Giannantonio, who, like Morbidelli, made excellent use of his soft rear tyre. More importantly, Zarco finished only 7.5 seconds behind Marc, a difference of just 0.299 seconds per lap. Last year his average deficit to the winner was 27 seconds, an average of more than a second per lap.
That’s how big a leap forward Honda has made. The latest RC213V stops better, turns better and grips better exiting corners. The bike will take another step forward once Honda engineers can exorcise that chatter/vibration and deliver a faster engine. Zarco averaged 211.6mph (340.7km/h) in Sunday’s race, against the fastest bikes, the KTM RC16s of Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder, which averaged 214.6mph (345.5km/h).
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Ducati
The latest RC16 is fast in a straight line but has all kinds of problems, mostly serious chatter/vibration, apparently even worse than last year. KTM engineers can dial out some of the chatter but only by reducing traction.
“We need to understand how to put the power to the ground because our bike loses the rear the easiest, so you lose time, time, time, having it spin, spin, spin,” said Acosta after struggling to ninth, a second behind Binder.
Aprilia had another horrible weekend. Still missing world champion Jorge Martin, twice injured before the racing had even started, it had Bezzecchi crash out at the first corner of the GP. And the joy of rookie Ai Ogura’s superb comeback from 15th on the grid to eighth didn’t last long – the Japanese was disqualified for an error in the homologated ECU/IMU firmware loaded into his Trackhouse RS-GP.
Yamaha’s troubles continued: Alex Rins 12th, Jack Miller 14th and Fabio Quartararo 15th, the former champion coming back from dead last after the falling Bezzecchi slammed into him.
Whatever Yamaha engineers do with the inline-four YZR-M1 it becomes more necessary to accelerate development of its all-new V4, which, if Yamaha engineers do the job properly, will be a Desmosedici clone.
