with Marc.
Could Ducati be starting the
same process, in reverse?
It is not entirely frivolous.
Marc apart, and he is in a world
of his own, the latest version of
the class-leading machine has
suffered some serious blows
throughout the year.
The GP24 that took last year's
title has, by contrast, been
consistently strong, taking Alex
Marquez to a string of second
places and a first main-race vic
-
tory, returning Franco Morbidelli
to
the podium, and giving class
rookie Fermin Aldeguer a stun-
ning race win in Indonesia, the
second
youngest in GP history,
after (of course) Marc.
But apart from Marc's domi
-
nant performance, the GP25 has
played its rider's
foul. It's driven
second factory rider Pecco
Bagnaia deep into the slough of
despond with ever-worsening
performances and taken Fabio Di
Giannantonio through an erratic
year with high points (two podi
-
ums) hardly compensating for
several
really poor weekends.
It is Marc's "world of his own"
that seems to be the problem.
He gets results that apparently
transcend the bike's quirks and
weaknesses because he is so
absolutely exceptional. Other
riders, following him on track
or examining his data, can only
wonder at how he does it. A
combination of adventure, appli
-
cation, intelligence and aston-
T
he absence of new cham-
pion Marc Marquez from
the last four races
of the
MotoGP season, who was thor-
oughly "Lombocked" when Marco
Bezzecchi knocked him out of
the park in Indonesia, has posed
interesting questions for Ducati.
Marc's presence on the team
has massively reinforced their
existing superiority, winning not
just the title every year since
2022 but also most races. But
has it also started a similar
process that, over the years of
his tenure at Honda, led devel
-
opment into the doldrums?
Honda
is only now starting to
recover momentum, six seasons
after their last dominant cham
-
pionship, achieved, of course,
MARC
LEADING
DUCATI
DOWN THE
GARDEN
PATH?
IS
P132
CN II IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
