Mark Marquez fought back against critics who claimed that his MotoGP rivals weren’t competing hard enough after his Dutch Grand Prix victory in 2025.
The factory Ducati riders controlled the 2025 championship as the Sprint/Grand Prix Doubles made 68 points clear in the rankings for the third consecutive time.
At the Dutch Grand Prix, he was pushed hard with Alex Marquez’s sprint and again with Marco Betzecchi’s Grand Prix.
After the race, he responded to critics of his rivals. He is especially accused of not racing Mark Marquez like everyone else.
Mark Marquez demanded “respect” from his rivals and said he was “angry” about what he was reading.
In the latest Crush MotoGP podcast, senior journalist Louis Duncan argues that criticism of Marquez’s rivals doesn’t take into account the nature of racing with modern bikes.
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“There’s so much we can do,” Duncan began.
“And one thing that doesn’t take into consideration in this criticism that Mark’s rivals aren’t racing him so hard, I think it’s really hard for these bikes to race.
“It’s hard to do all the aero, front tire pressure and clean overtaking.
“I saw in this sprint era that everyone panicked about tire pressure and you knew there had been so many crashes from that.
“So, a lot of people do crazy things at the start of the race. They realised there isn’t much you can do, so it calmed down a bit.
“A lot of that depends on qualifications, and if you go ahead of your rivals you are in the best position possible.
“Assen may be the circuit that highlights trouble by overtaking these bikes the most.
“Think of 2018 when there were over 150 overtakes. It’s a tight, fast track and there’s the behavior of these bikes, so you can’t have it anymore. Racing is really difficult.
“So setting up a clean overtaking is really difficult.
“Alex Marquez is going to approach Mark Marquez’s race differently because there is dynamics there, but he doesn’t give Mark any easy time as Alex is also a championship challenger.
“So he overtakes Mark and makes a mistake, attacks him, crashes himself, Mark stays and Alex loses the point. So you can’t make a dangerous overtaking.
“We can say that Alex can take risks, but when we’ve already seen how quickly the Mark’s gap can evaporate due to a mistake, Alex is smart enough to know he’s in a position to beat Mark remotely.
“And on the other hand, when Mark made a mistake, you built up ground work to make use of it.
“So, of course, he’s not going to go to Gunho and throw the bike inside, and it’s the same with Bez in the Grand Prix as well.
“He really pushed Mark hard, but that’s the second place for Aprilia team for now under a lot of pressure, stupidly to throw away big points just for off-chances that might be able to pass at Mark Marquez.
“I think people have forgotten a bit about how racing works.”
Podcast host Jordan Moreland claims that Mark Marquez is tactically better than his rivals when leading because he knows how difficult it is to overtake these bikes.
“The ability to reset the job and do the job (after the crash).
“He hit Bagnaia again this weekend, and I think it is Bagnaia.
“Obviously he was struggling with the fuel tanks and while I thought Bagnaia was closer to the race, Mark had no issues early on.
“Bez was the one who kept him honest and for Mark, Mark was just memorable because he could see visually in his sprint with Alex (Marquez).
“He tactically beat them. That was particularly impressive considering the comments that people who weren’t attacking him, especially Alex, but what should I do when he’s in this mode?”