Bottom of the Ninth, Bases Loaded, 2 Outs…
Welcome back to another Dre’s Race Review, and it’s another double header (And it’s a Triple next week, for the love of God). This time we start out with what may be MotoGP’s true blue-ribbon race on the calendar and the one that many people in the field want to win – The Italian Grand Prix at Mugello. And we had a record crowd of 88,000 in the house to see Aprilia play what may be the deathblow for this era of the sport. Let’s talk about it.
Here Comes The Pitch
The big story heading into the weekend? Marc Marquez was back. A lot of people were understandably concerned about him, but I thought Mugello was always going to be a reasonable return date. The surgery on his foot was minor and his shoulder, while more invasive than he would have liked, wasn’t too complicated. The issue now was going to be seeing whether the nerve would be okay, and how his weakened arm would hold up. More on that later.
Marquez got through practice comfortably in the end, and with Ducati taking 5 of the Top 6, you’d think it was another beating by the boys in red. But it was my colleague Lewis Duncan at Crash that pointed out in his Friday analysis a clear performance bump in the long runs for Aprilia after nine laps of wear. Ducati can have the one-lap pace at a high speed track all they want, but the tyre wear would cripple them in the long run.
Then Aprilia does the unthinkable and locks out the front row. Not only did Marco Bezzecchi break the all-time lap record and become the first man to do a 1:43 around the Tuscan hills, Raul Fernandez (Who came through Q1 and Jorge Martin backed up Bez for Aprilia’s first ever front-row lockout. Marquez was fastest Duke, but just missed out on the front row by a hundredth. Uh-oh.
But that’s the beautiful thing about Marc Marquez. Even when he’s not at 100%, 60 as he said himself, he still has these magical moments that remind you of the rider he can still be. At Le Mans before his Sprint crash, it was that scintillating Q1 lap that was quicker than anyone by four tenths that he couldn’t replicate. At Mugello, it was a ridiculous launch in the Sprint, that had him four wide into San Donato, and coming out in the lead. It only lasted two corners before Raul Fernandez took the lead via a block pass, but it made me smile seeing that brief essence of Marc like himself.
He’d eventually sink back to P5 in said Sprint, but Raul Fernandez was untouchable there. He withheld the pressure from Martin behind when he was within half a second, but countered to push the gap back out to a second, and didn’t look back. Fernandez’s first Sprint win, and the first for Trackhouse as a team. A key dub for Raul, whose future within the team is still very much up in the air with Davide Brivio, his biggest supporter leaving for HRC and a new management likely to decide whether he stays.
Nearest Ducati? Once again, Fabio di Giannantonio, 3.2 seconds back. Not ideal.
Struck Him Out
As for the Grand Prix, Ducati got a reprieve. Raul Fernandez, surely a contender for his second ever MotoGP victory, hit a false neutral downshifting for Turn 1, running him near the gravel, and sending him to the back of the field. One less bullet in the chamber.
Unfortunately, this was still Russian Roulette. Pecco Bagnaia gave the sea of Ducati fans some brief hope as he took the holeshot and was actually able to hold the lead for several laps, Ducati’s top speed on the main straight being a superb defensive weapon. For Marco Bezzecchi it was another case of the Aprilia talisman not having his usual holeshot formula of being a supreme frontrunner. But he didn’t panic. By the half way stage, Bagnaia’s rear tyres were cooked, Bez made light work of the Ducati rider and once he hit the front, then the usual Bez dominance kicked in.
It’s the unfortunate nature of what Bagnaia is now as a MotoGP rider. Ducati had prayed at the altar of rear grip for the last three years of their development, at the cost of front-end feeling, something that’s huge for Pecco as a rider. 2026 Pecco is a bit more comfortable, but the rears don’t have the grip to last a race distance in its current configuration. Pecco was passed by Martin, and fell into the path of the most dangerous weapon in MotoGP – late race Ai Ogura, who stuck a pass on him at the final corner of the last lap, but Bagnaia held on at the exit and beat Ogura to the line in a drag race. Back-to-back podiums and a well-earned third place.
As for his teammate, Marc Marquez was briefly in that lead battle, but couldn’t stay with them. He got into a brilliant fight with Pedro Acosta, and Marquez used all his strength to keep the KTM behind him for half the race, but his arm ran out of strength and he eventually fell to seventh. Marc took some positives out of the weekend – He was able to write his post-race notes for the first time in months because he no longer had his arm shake due to the nerve damage.
This was a new type of feeling, fatigue pain from an arm that was just recovering the muscle memory you can only gain from riding a MotoGP bike, yet alone trying to figure out a Ducati GP26 that no-one’s been able to truly maximize. This was a step in the right direction, a round that gives Marquez something to work with, and something to look forward to. I don’t think he’s a million miles away and a lot of my fears about the nature of his health have faded. It’s easy to lose sight of that when you consider this is his EIGHTH injury comeback since April 2021.
But at the front, this felt like a changing of the guard. For Marco Bezzecchi, an emotional home victory. He’d never even finished on the podium at his home round before this weekend, and he rode a flawless race. Aprilia themselves had never won at Mugello. And Bez made it look easy. Martin took another easy 20 points and wasn’t troubled for second. I too wonder if Raul Fernandez had not had his false neutral, if he would have featured at the thick end too. There’s no more hurdles to jump over, no more tests of resilience. Aprilia has the best bike in MotoGP, and the era of Ducati dominance is over. It’s not a fluke, or a development kick that’s caught Ducati out like Mercedes in F1 when the ground-effect era kicked in. This is just Aprilia using F1-tech, and hiring the right people to tick off their weaknesses, and turn the RS-GP into a stealth bomber.
There’s a lot of salty Ducati fans out there because they’re in Tier A of concessions and it means they’re limited in the development of their bike in a race. To which I say… tough shit. Ducati have been the best bike in MotoGP since the middle of 2022 when Yamaha and Fabio Quartararo collapsed in the middle of his title defence. That’s nearly four years of terror where at times, we had as many as seven Ducati’s in the Top 10 of the standings, where no-one had the combination of resources and knowledge to chase them down. All this period says to me is, the concession system, designed to bring the field closer together has worked. Aprilia’s there, and will be Tier A alongside Ducati at the mid-season break I’m sure.
PS: Miss me with pouring one out for Bologna, this is the same factory who ran as an Open Class runner in the CRT rules just to game the system for extra resources. Fuck around and find out, Ducati always being choppy with their own development has ultimately cost them. Welcome to the new era.
The Lightning Round
Another record fell for Aprilia, the all-time MotoGP speed record. Jorge Martin reclaimed his title by hitting 229.3mph at the Speed Trap, that’s 368.6kph in metric figures. That’s faster than Sting Ray Robb’s Indy 500 qualifying run on a bike that has 1/50th of the contact patch. Terrifying, and a likely sign that unless we get favourable wind in Qatar, that record may never fall. When even riders like Marquez say we don’t need to go more than 200, I think that’s telling as to why we’re getting the 850’s next year.
A very classy touch from Raul Fernandez and Trackhouse to acknowledge the passing of Kyle Busch on their bike over the weekend.
89,000 in the house (A race that had barely 40k on race day not long ago), with two Italian natives on the podium, with flares, airhorns, chainsaws and a vibe reflective of the Rossi era. A reminder that as I said last time out in Catalunya, you don’t need to be an English-speaker first to grow the sport.
A very wholesome note for Diogo Moreira, a huge Marquez fan, who admitted that he wanted to pass Marquez at least once before he retires, purely for the photo, only for that to happen, and then Moreira finds Marquez a print to sign it! Bike racing needs more of that…
…and as Pedro Acosta said after his excellent fight with Marquez, we need more of those kinds of battles on screen too. TV Direction was right to stay on it and it was the most back and forth fight we’ve had between two riders this year. Awesome.
We need to get Manu Gonzalez a seat in MotoGP this summer. I’m getting genuinely concerned that with Tech3 linked with Senna Agius, Manu’s getting overlooked. I get the reasons why. MSEG wants more riders from outside Spain and Italy. Gonzalez is 23 and now has 96 Moto2 starts as one of the field’s most experienced riders. But he’s so fast when on it over a weekend, beating the field’s ass by 6 seconds, combined with superb tire saving skills, that I have no doubt he’d be a great fit for a team who wants to take a punt on him. I’ve heard hints of Trackhouse, I’ve heard hints of Honda in World Superbikes. I know where I’d rather see him.
Murmurs abound that Nicolo Bulega (22 straight wins in World Superbikes by the way) to VR46 and Enea Bastianini to Trackhouse could be imminent…
Sprint Rating: ⭐⭐ (Meh) – Not much to see here. A bit of early drama as positions get found, but nothing at the front to keep you interested. This was due for MotoGP this year really.
Grand Prix Rating: 7/10 (Good) – Probably the best MotoGP race of 2026 so far. Italy’s been a bit of a damp squib in recent years so this was a step up. A fun battle at the front early on with Bez and Pecco, the latter sinking back to Ogura was fun, and the Marquez/Acosta fight with one eye on the future was a great bit of entertainment that alone makes this worth a watch. See you in… *sighs*, Balaton Park. Fuc-