“12+1 = 90.”
Hey again everyone, we’re doubling up here with the MotoGP Race Review from the sport’s return to Argentina (And sadly, could be its final appearance too.) And with it, Marc Marquez literally doubled down on the season opener in Thailand as he took Argentina… but he had to work for it.
Marquez vs Marquez 2: Marquez Harder
And so it came to pass that once again, it was the Marquez brothers going hammer and tongs to settle themselves again in Argentina. Marc Marquez qualified on pole again after being the only man to crack the 1:36 barrier – His lap record from way back in 2014. Back then, we didn’t have aero dynamics, ride-height devices and friggin’ Bridgestone tyres!
The Sprint went similarly to Thailand’s – Marquez took the holeshot and did not look back. Alex said between this race and the GP that he felt closer to his brother Marc on this one and you know what? He was probably right. Marc was definitely in control during the Sprint but did have to push harder towards the end to squeeze the gap out to a full second, enough to take his second Sprint win of the year.
The Grand Prix was a different story. Marc got the hole shot, but an early mistake running wide at Turn 1 opened the door for Alex to take the lead. Thinking about it now, Alex Marquez has led more laps of GPs this season than Marc has, with Marc sitting behind for a good 18 laps of this one. He tried making his move with 8 laps to go, but ran wide again struggling to get the bike stopped into the hairpin at Turn 4. But with 5 laps left, Marc got the run on Alex at his strongest section, the Turn 2-3 complex, and then nailed the pass before he even got to Turn 4. And once again, once Marc got in front and unleashed 100% of his pace, it was over. Marc pulls out a 1.5-second lead and his second consecutive win.
It’s a record-setting win in many ways – It was Marc’s 90th across the classes, tying him with Spain’s winningest-ever rider in 12+1 himself, Angel Nieto. It puts him equal third on the all-time wins list, behind Valentino Rossi and Giacomo Agostini. Marquez became the first man to be perfect through the first two rounds (Pole, Win, Fastest Lap, the Sprints are a bonus), since Jack Doohan’s Dad in 1995. And by the way, he’s the first man to do the Sprint/Grand Prix double in back-to-back races since the format changed in 2023.
Surveying the state of the field is… interesting. Alex Marquez is taking being regularly beaten into second with remarkable good grace, and losing to your brother takes some of the edge off of it. He openly admitted that when Marc swung and missed with eight to go, he dropped everything to go for the win, and Marc still went quicker. While that might be demoralising, credit needs to be due. Alex was a rider who despite being a Double World Champion was never given full credit for doing so, feeling like an “also-ran” and in harsher circles, making up the numbers.
Now, he’s the objective #2 rider in the world and has been sensational on the GP24. The Austria spec of that bike is carrying him to his strongest performances as a rider and the first GP win has never felt closer. Right now, he is the only threat to Marc’s perfect season so far. And anyone saying that Marc isn’t trying with Alex or claiming its rigged, Marc had to save the rear of his bike from sliding out at 100mph. He’s not phoning this in or going soft on Alex because he can, his efforts are sincere.
Pecco Bagnaia looks like he’s in some trouble. In good news, he had his best-ever result in Argentina, regardless of class. But he finished over five seconds back of his rival on the same bike. He’s not even the #2 rider in the field, Alex Marquez is. Bagnaia’s learnt to be more conservative and take the points, but given he’s already 31 points behind in the standings, control feels like it’s slipping away on his side of the garage. If Bagnaia hasn’t got an answer for Marc in Qatar and Jerez, two of Pecco’s strongest rounds, he’s in serious trouble.
Bagnaia was solemn after finishing in fourth. While not terrible in a vacuum, it needs to be said that that’s also the fourth-highest-ranked Ducati, beaten by two men on previous spec machinery. Davide Tardozzi openly admitted they’ve missed something in the settings of this bike that’s hampered Pecco, with the man himself acknowledging “Fourth isn’t my place”. And while he’s not feeling as off the boil as he did this time last year when the original GP24 was struggling with rear-end chatter, it doesn’t answer the fact that Marquez is in the same climate and has dog walked him across the first two weekends – With Thailand being a Pecco track of all things.
As said, Pecco will be circling Qatar. Change needs to come, and fast.
Supply And Demand
In other news, Pirelli has become MotoGP’s new tyre supplier for the 2027 season. Turns out Dorna wanted a single tyre supplier for all four classes, and there was no skin in the game for Michelin in Moto2/3, who are already supplied by Pirelli, to rave reviews. And given all the extra advertising Pirelli was getting on the sidelines, as well as their lucrative F1 gig, it was likely an easy sell to just straight up outbid Michelin for the rights.
The riders were quick to sing Michelin’s praises when the announcement was made. Mostly because they’re not allowed to criticise the tyres – I haven’t forgotten all the thinly veiled remarks about “bad batches” whenever a rider like Jorge Martin in Qatar 2023 or Bagnaia in Aragon 2024 got a rear they didn’t like. I know media-trained PR language when I hear it, my background is in F1.
I feel sorry for Michelin. They were up against it right from the start given Bridgestone was almost universally loved by those who used them, and they worked hard to earn respect within the paddock. And then they were thrown under the bus when Dorna enabled the aero revolution we have now, and the French tyre firm all of a sudden had to try and develop a tyre that could handle the massive amount of front downforce modern-day MotoGP bikes were generating. It was always fighting a losing battle, especially when they weren’t getting the testing to fully understand the scope of their problems.
I sincerely hope Pirelli understands the spec for 2027 and gives us a set of tyres that can work to those regulations. They have a two-year headstart to get it together, but if Michelin’s era has proven nothing else, we should be careful given there’s no guarantee Pirelli is going to get this right straight away.
And let’s not ignore the elephant in the room here – If it walks like a monopoly, talks like a monopoly, and smells like a monopoly, chances are it is. The Liberty Media sports landscape is going to have the two biggest players in Motorsport under one roof, and its entire catalogue is going to have ONE tyre supplier for F1, its support classes (F2, F3, F1 Academy), MotoGP and all four of its classes (GP, 2, 3, E) AND World Superbikes (WSBK, WSS, Women’s WC and upcoming 700 class), ALL under one roof. But please tell me why the EU shouldn’t be investigating this like a Monopoly like this is totally fine, Mr Moneybags.
The Mega Lightning Round
If you missed the news last night, Ai Ogura has been disqualified from the Grand Prix result on the account of running a non-homologated spec of his electronics. It’s an open and shut case for what it’s worth, if you run anything that isn’t a spec-part for homologation, it’s an immediate DSQ as it goes against the technical regulations. Now, this was likely an unfortunate accident. According to The Race, Ogura’s ECU was recently replaced on a rebuild from a crash, and it was seemingly for a software spec for testing, not for an actual weekend. There was no performance gain from the mistake, it’s purely for the difference in firmware. A darn shame, and it should be by no means a reflection of Ogura’s exceptional performances so far for Trackhouse.
Also, with it, Honda now sits second in the manufacturer’s standings. If you had guessed that a year ago, I’d have told you to lay off the edibles. But it’s true. With Ogura’s DQ, Honda got THREE bikes in the Top 10, including a 6th place for Johann Zarco, who was genuinely competing with Pecco Bagnaia and the factory Ducati’s at times. He only lost out on a Top 5 on the final lap to a clever pass by Fabio DiGiannantonio. But it looks like in any case, Thailand was no fluke, and at worst, Honda has a competitive package compared to Aprilia and KTM.
Jorge Martin is confirmed out for COTA, and even Qatar in April is currently deemed 50/50. I’m glad Aprilia isn’t rushing him back and that Martin is listening to his body, even if this season now feels more like a development year than any serious attempt at a title retention. Aprilia’s pushing for Martin to get a test before he returns to racing proper, but faces a tough ask trying to convince the manufacturers to make an immediate rule change.
Davide Tardozzi at Ducati made a valid counterpoint – Enea Bastianini wasn’t given the same luxury in 2023 when he missed nine races through injury that season, but I wonder how much of this is baked in the general idea of “Martin’s a rival, sod that.”. For what its worth, this writer thinks it would be a fine idea, but the battlegrounds of testing is tricky enough, good luck getting everyone to agree on that.
Franco Morbidelli with his first Grand Prix podium finish in 1,414 days, going back to the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix, back when he had two working cruciate ligaments. Gambled on the softer rear tyre when the majority of the field was on the medium and he made it work. Delighted to see him back on the podium, he’s one of the genuinely good people in the MotoGP paddock, and there were question marks over his bailout by VR46 in the off-season. Two weekends in, he’s back on the podium and sits fourth in the Championship, just six points behind Pecco Bagnaia. He’s already justifying the faith “Uccio” put in him.
Answers on a postcard: What is it with Marco Bezzecchi and catapulting himself into another bike on a start? And how was that only a warning?
And what voodoo God did Miguel Oliveira piss off in a previous life? Man’s set to face his fifth spell on the sidelines since 2023 through injury, this time via a crash with Fermin Aldeguer. This sucks.
CONTENT WARNING: I want to like Jake Dixon in Moto2, and it was a brilliant victory in Argentina, but he needs to drop the Conor McGregor and Cristiano Ronaldo post-race celebrations. One is a rapist found guilty in a court of law, and the other has had very public court dealings about identical accusations. And if you’re claiming the Irish MMA fighter copied it from Vince McMahon, ask yourself this… is that the man you want to replicate?
Angel Piqueras won the Moto3 race and wasn’t penalised for putting two wheels on the green for track limits. By current rules, a final lap track limits excursion is an automatic position drop, but it was deemed Piqueras didn’t gain an advantage by going into the green… despite it being blatantly used to set up his race-winning overtake on the penultimate hairpin. A nonsense call and I think Adrian Fernandez was robbed of a victory. Congratulations Simon Crafar, you’ve earned your first stewarding beehive, and no one forgets their first! And remember – #NOKWAPI, because as proven again yesterday – No One Knows What A Penalty Is.
And sadly, the resounding fear is that this was the final race in Argentina for some time. Brazil is hot on the series’ agenda with a special launch presentation this week, and the murmurs I heard from the paddock was it’s a straight replacement for Argentina. I get it to a degree – Termas Rio Del Hondo is in the middle of nowhere, hours out from Buenos Aries, but the people roll out for it – 80,000 on race day, and 200,000+ across the weekend, Silverstone would kill for those numbers. There’s no reason in my opinion, why we can’t have both when we have 5 races in the Iberian Peninsula.
The Rating: 6.5/10 (Decent) – This was another fine MotoGP race. There was a bit more intrigue in the air because Marc had to work for it on this one and I didn’t think it was an inevitable win like in Thailand, where Marc looked like he could have won that whenever he wanted… even if Marc ultimately did prevail similarly in the end. These bikes are still difficult to race at full chat and the action is still not what it could be, so we have to make use of what we get. Glad Franco broke up the monotony a bit. See you in Elon Musk land.
