Catalonian MotoGP practice pace suggests that Mark Marquez might get his title wish

The greenery in the leaves is almost beginning to disappear, and already in early September, we are standing on a cliff where the 2025 MotoGP World Championship was decided. For all intents and purposes, this book is sealed in its title. Mark Marquez does all the hard yards to do it all, but mathematically guarantees.

That shot could be better in more than a week when Padoc replaces the Industrial Surround of Circuit de Barcelona Catalña for the picturesque Misano Coastline of the San Marino Grand Prix.

Mark Marquez took a 175-point lead in 2025 on Friday evening, September 5th. If he has at least 185 points advantage over Alex Marquez at the end of the Catalonian Grand Prix, he can crown the world champion at Misano if all the cards fall into his path.

To suggest that the sprint and Grand Prix at Barcelona are the most important races of the season, it doesn’t exaggerate it.

The possibility of a Misano Cor crown was on the table for a while. But Mark Marquez polishes it over and over. After his seventh 37-point weekend weekend and his 10th main race victory in Hungarian Grand Prix, he said he hopes to be awarded the championship in Japan or Indonesia, what it means if it happens in Misano.

He repeated this in Spain on Thursday: “I want to have a match point as soon as possible, but I want to have it in Japan or Indonesia because if I have it in Misano, that means my brother has had a disaster weekend here in Catalonia.

Alex Marquez’s recent form leaves much to be desired. He suffered double non-scores at Brno, but Joan Mir’s collision left him with a long lap penalty for Austria. He was on the podium in the Spielberg sprint, but only finished 10th in the Grand Prix. He received a grid penalty for interference in Hungary, only eighth in the sprint and 14th in the Grand Prix after the crash.

“We need to flow and we can’t make mistakes at key moments of the weekend,” he told the official MotoGP website after finishing with Barcelona 3 on Friday. “I think this was something we did last weekend. We put a little of everything in the trash.”

Barcelona is a circuit that Mark Marquez considers to be weak. For Alex Marquez, that was what he instantly clicked on the GP24 in a postseason Test last November. If there’s a weekend to stop the skid he’s in, that’s this.

Delaying the brother’s coral crown is ultimately a waste of exercise. But that’s not basically the point. At one stage in 2025, Alex Marquez was his brother’s closest challenger. At the very least, he needs to go back to those ways and show that he can keep Mark Marquez on his toes next year.

Mark Marquez is closer than expected, but there are plenty of threats on the bogie circuit.

After 14 rounds of the campaign, Mark Marquez doesn’t actually trip much. He did himself from a surefire victory while leading at Kota, but the impatience at Geres contributed to an unnecessary crash fall, opening the door for Alex Marquez to get his first victory.

He was lucky with the timing of the red silverstone flag. However, if you choose a “weak” venue that rivals the eight-time world champion, Barcelona and Silverstone are not very similar. Both are fast right-handed circuits with limited success. In Barcelona, ​​Marquez has won just two times in the last 12 years.

However, at Silverstone he was second in the sprint and third in the Grand Prix. So, when Marquez talks about lowering expectations for the circuit, even his entry, where he has to work hard on a fast right-handed track due to a 2020 humeral injury, is still the lowest step on the podium in the worst case scenario.

In a rare recent case, he didn’t put the session on top on Friday. The honor was given to KTM (later details of Austrian terms). At the end of the practice, Marquez was Ducatis’ fourth, about 0.224 seconds from the pace set by Blood Binder.

This is not to say that the problem is. He was out of the front row of Silverstone, Assen and Red Bull Ring, and was on the podium in both – in the latter two, he won both races. At the pace, he was far stronger than expected.

“Alex is the fastest in terms of pace, but it wasn’t bad for Montmelo,” he told the media on Friday.

Certainly, as you can see in the table above, Alex Marquez was slightly faster than his brother at an average pace of 1m39.824 compared to 1m39.924. Both Ducati riders were faster than the two major KTMs on the timesheet.

Both Marquez brothers worked on medium rubber, with Alex Marquez moving slightly longer in terms of the length of the stint and overall age of the tires. Interestingly, Alex Marquez also appeared to have a race pace a little slower than what Mark Marquez became famous this year. Gresini Rider ran 1M39.990 on the penultimate lap of the sample, while Marc Marquez was lower at 1M40.

Given Mark Marquez’s fears about Barcelona, ​​there is a debate that this should be the rest of the concern, as it offers clear benefits. And that’s what he’s been good at since he jumped on Ducati last year.

But Alex Marquez wasn’t too pleased with the bike he could do and was quick.

“Even so, there are some issues, especially in the front of the bike. It’s not spinning as much as I want at a fast angle,” he said. “So it’s a happy thing because there’s still a margin to make me happy. This is really positive.”

The fact that his GP24 is not heading towards a fast angle so far is what stimulates his confidence in Alex Marquez. The final sector of the lap features fast downhill rights of 13 turns and 14 turns (and a long radius of turn 10).

If he can continue what Alex Marquez started on Friday, there is little excuse for him not to go all the way to the Grand Prix as a favorite.

KTM is making sure the updated bike is in a competitive package

It wasn’t a surprise to see Pedro Acosta at the sharp end of Friday’s action progression, but it was a bit unusual to see Brad Binder’s fastest day of everything.

It’s not a small amount against the double MotoGP winner, but his one lap speed in 2025 left a lot to be desired. He has the sixth best on the grid this year, but only watched five times in the second quarter (including this weekend).

Race speed has often not been an issue for South Africans, but raising the grid up to make the starting position a better one is what he needs to truly enjoy the rewards of pace.

Binder explained on Friday that the update brought to Austria’s RC16, coupled with a change in approach to how he tackles the time attacks being key to his speed on Friday. Alex Marquez said he wasn’t surprised at how fast KTM was, but was surprised and surprised.

“I mean, I was expecting it, but not as fast as they were,” he said. “It looks like every KTMS, especially in the days when it was Pol (Espargaro) or Miguel (Oliveira), I remember it on a track that could get really fast.” KTM’s final dry weather victory took place in Oliveira and Barcelona in 2021.

Three of the four KTMs are Q2, and Maverick Vinales is an outlier. But that’s not a comment on what his potential is. This was his first round since Austria, and he still feels the impact from the shoulder injured in Germany in July.

Acosta, Binder and Enea Bastianini – crashed at the end of the PR – everything raced with soft rubber. Bastianini was fast out of three, averaged 39.920 ft and had 15 laps by the end. Only Alex Marquez is faster.

With Barcelona always being a tire race, Bastianini’s rear rubber protection is something that could drive him to victory on Sunday. If he could connect the qualifiers and he’s been doing it recently, he’s the biggest threat from KTM Stable at this point – not so much.

Acosta believes this change of pace from KTM can be attributed to more other manufacturers as they are always in Barcelona when their grip condition is low.

“I’m very happy how the bike works,” he said. “It’s not special, but other brands suffer a little more and we’re still on the level. Maybe this could be. Remember how fast Brad got in both races last year. I was very competitive in the first race, and for this, we have to think too much about the outcome and continue working.”

The two podiums of the final three Grand Prix are evidence that the first victory of the season isn’t too far for KTM. Ducatis still has small advantages now. And even if his race pace isn’t that strong on Friday, Aprilia’s Marco Betzecki’s second quarter appearance maintains the threat he’s been putting up for a while.

But Barcelona appears so far as the most important evidence of KTM’s revival.

Bagnaia’s hopes quickly turned into despair on Friday in Barcelona

When I began writing an analysis of this practice at the Catalonian Grand Prix, there was a huge part of me that I thought was seeing a real victory challenge from Pecco Bagnaia.

His Hungarian Grand Prix really couldn’t get any worse, but Sunday produced what appears to be the turnaround for a key setup that met him with confidence that came to the circuit, where he won twice last year.

However, he ended on Friday and never even lifted himself from the top 20 in either session.

Bagnaia’s FP1 was not helped by technical issues with one of the FP1’s bikes. However, the Hungarian setup didn’t make a difference. In fact, “even worse,” he explains it, “Because honestly, it’s always the same story in the end. Honestly, I really don’t know where to go.”

The Double World Champion is frustrated with points, but sometimes he accepts his own role playing in this funk. But today it looked as low as he could get. And now the question arises as to where he is going from here?

He doesn’t expect a Saturday change. He doesn’t even have the racepace to offer much encouragement. I ran in the medium Ria, which averaged 1M40.228S compared to teammate Mark Marquez’s 1M39.942. Bagnaia wasn’t the only one that the GP25 was struggling with. Fabio di Giannantonio was 17th.

However, there is no scenario where Di Giannantonio should be a reference to a rider in the Bagnaia caliber. And this is clearly understood by Ducati boss David Tardozzi. He told SkyItalia after FP1:

Simply put, Ducati has not much to offer on the bike and needs bugnair to push through the issues of talent. That’s easier than that. Also, at this stage in 2025, it seems impossible now, given that this situation is being forced in Bagnaia.

Bagnaia led Homemarquez to win the Solidarity Grand Prix in November – the 11th victory of the campaign – and slightly missed the third premier class title.