Reigning World Champion Marc Marquez wasted no time licking his wounds. He was back on track for Monday’s official Jerez test, spearheading Ducati’s desperate push to close the gap on the dominant Aprilias.
Marc Facing a daunting 44-point deficit to title leader Marco Bezzecchi after a disastrous Lap 2 crash on Sunday. Despite his early exit in the Spanish Grand Prix, Marquez put his “fresher than expected” physical condition to good use, logging a massive 68 laps.
He ended the afternoon session as the fastest Ducati on the timesheets with a blistering 1m36.277s, trailing only a trio of RS-GPs.
Ducati engineers supplied the champion with a heavily revised aerodynamic package—featuring new fairings and swingarm aero—alongside a modified chassis. The primary objective was restoring Marquez’s legendary front-end confidence, particularly on left-handers.
“I started to feel a bit more confident with the front, especially in the left corners, which was normally one of my strong points, and I was struggling there during these first races,” Marquez explained. “Right corners also, we improved a bit. Basically, we didn’t lose the strong points, and we gained a bit in the weak points.”
While Marquez found immediate comfort with the new configuration, the factory Ducati garage is currently dealing with a split in rider feedback. Team Manager Davide Tardozzi confirmed that aerodynamic development is the absolute priority, but noted that Marquez and teammate Pecco Bagnaia are fighting entirely different battles on the GP26.
“Marc is happy about this new configuration,” Tardozzi confirmed to MotoGP. “While on the other side, Pecco still has some question marks. Each of them would like to improve a different area. We tried to find something for both of them. On Marc’s side, maybe yes. On Pecco’s side, we’ll see.”
For Bagnaia, the test was a race against the clock to solve the issues that plagued his weekend before his Sunday DNF. Finishing tenth on the combined timesheets, the Italian acknowledged the aero improvements but stressed that his side of the garage has a mountain of data to analyze before the next round.
“I am quite satisfied about some items,” Bagnaia noted. “The aerodynamics package is working well. We just need to be more focused on stopping the bike. Today we tried something, maybe we found a direction. So, for Le Mans, I hope that we will have something to improve.”
Credit Photo : MotoGP
