Marc Marquez's Grand Prix victory at Aragon on Sunday was much more than the end of a three-year drought for the Spaniard. He has kept a much lower profile than usual since he arrived at the Gresini team, while sending out very strong messages below the radar.
Winning again 1043 days since his last success is already a feat for someone who nine months ago made the riskiest gamble of his career. Leaving Honda, his career-long MotoGP home on which he was the flagship totem of the winged empire, to join one of the more modest independent squads in the paddock and ride a year-old bike brought no guarantees of success.
But Marquez's victory at Aragon hides much deeper consequences than just the story of his return to the top step of the podium. The implications of his superiority around one of his favourite circuits involves much more than most people can imagine, and to delve into them means dissecting the rider’s roadmap; that "plan" that he has been talking about since 2023.
One piece of advice that Carlos Sainz Sr gave to his son when he was trying to convince Red Bull to allow him to debut in Formula 1 was to send messages. “I always told him to try to win because without winning there was no option, and from time to time, as much as possible, he should send ‘messages’ that would attract attention: a 'pole' in the wet, a fast lap, things like that,” the two-time world rally champion (1990 and 1992), has said on several occasions.
In the case of Marquez, his messages have accumulated on the track and, lately, off it as well. The strategy has worked out wonderfully in removing a huge weight from his shoulders – “I weigh two kilos less,” he joked – and in allowing him to face the remaining eight Grand Prix much more relaxed, without the expectation and pressure that could have come from not having been able to win yet on a Ducati after 59 victories on the Honda from 2013 to 2021.
“Marc changed brands to be a champion,” one of Marquez's closest confidants told Autosport after hugging the star of the day. “You don't have four arm operations and give up a multi-million euro contract like the one he had at Honda, just to have fun. Now he knows that he can win again, and that will be very important for his confidence.”
“He is one of the few who, after being injured, had no need to go back to racing,” remarked Pedro Acosta, who finished two spots behind Marquez on Sunday. “He could have gone home. But what he has done defines him as a person.”
Aragon came two weeks after the spectacular comeback he made in Austria, where on Sunday he rose from 13th on the first lap, due to a problem with the ride height device, to finish fourth. His feeling at the Red Bull Ring was already good and arriving at Aragon, where he had previously won five times in the 14 editions of the Grand Prix - he brought out his best.
He was fastest in all the practice sessions in which he participated and took pole position by more than eight-tenths of a second - the largest margin in a dry timed session since 2011. Marquez then dominated the Sprint and was untouchable on Sunday. The only practice session across the three days in which he did not finish P1 was the damp Sunday morning warm-up, where he didn’t even bother setting a lap time.
Sunday's victory with a slightly inferior prototype takes on even more significance as he subtly reconstructs his profile
“For me, that is a very significant thing,” said the source from his inner circle. “The fact that he decided not to go out for the warm-up, which was held on a half-wet track, shows how clear he was with regards to the race.”
Marquez's time at Aragon can be interpreted as a declaration of intention. Firstly, because it marks him out as the only rider who has been able to win with a Desmosedici GP23 against those who have the all-powerful GP24.
Marquez knowingly and willingly accepted the terms by Ducati for 2024 that he would have last year’s bike and has not hidden behind the (at time obvious) shortcomings of the machine compared to the current spec or used this as an excuse for his delay in returning to the top of the podium. Therefore, Sunday's victory with a slightly inferior prototype takes on even more significance as he subtly reconstructs his profile and establishes ever stronger connections with the brand from Bologna.
Marquez was formerly the king of the paddock and the hood ornament for HRC. He used to be the leading voice in the Friday Safety Commission meetings at every Grand Prix but has not attended them for some time. He plans to do so again when his opinions are valued as before.
Since he swung a leg over the Ducati, the 31-year-old has stressed that 2024 would be a rebuilding year. Many people interpreted these repeated comments as references to his chances in a competitive field. However, Marquez does not only want to recover the speed that he may have lost in his last months at Honda, but also desires a return to being the reference of the grid, to be the boss again of his domain in many senses.
In Mugello, that first weekend of June when Ducati had chosen Jorge Martin to accompany Bagnaia in the official team from 2025, Marquez raised the alarm and essentially cornered the executives of the Borgo Panigale company. He made Claudio Domenicali, the CEO, change his mind on the fly, and dispense with Martin once he realised that Marquez would reinforce rivals Aprilia. The other Italians finally signed the Madrid native.
The Aragon Grand Prix winner will wear official red in 2025. It was another of the targets that he marked as essential in order to return to the throne he occupied before his accident in 2020, in Jerez. In the pit box, he will share space with Bagnaia, and everything will be on the line. The duel with the double world champion from Turin has already begun, not so much on the asphalt as off it; in small, unseen ways and veiled words.
To face his new chapter in the Ducati factory workshop Marquez has had to relinquish his long association with Red Bull, one of his most loyal sponsors, because the Italian team has a global agreement with Monster Energy. The brand with the claw offered him the same personal terms as Bagnaia, but he declined the offer.
In these times, turning away from figures that only energy drink sponsors are able to pay is nothing less than another statement on the part of Marc Marquez. What will come next?
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