Why this is the most extraordinary version of Marc Marquez in MotoGP

Marc Marquez’s dominant performance in Buriram, combined with the Spaniard’s ability to extract his potential as a rider and that of his Ducati, has led those around him to describe the current version of the #93 as the most extraordinary and the most reliable ever.

In Thailand last weekend, Marquez again won the opening round of a season for the first time since 2014. That year, his second in the premier class, the Catalan won at the first ten stops on the calendar, in what remains the best winning streak in the MotoGP era. The new sprint weekend format introduced in 2023 makes those kinds of feats complicated to replicate. 

However, after Marquez’s blistering performance in Buriram, some people think it’s no longer impossible to match, or even surpass, that milestone. The fact that the next two rounds will be held at Termas de Rio Hondo and Austin, two circuits that have been a happy hunting ground for him in the past, makes it entirely possible that he will arrive in Qatar in April with three wins on the trot.

The significance of the six-time MotoGP champion’s superiority in the season opener is not lost on anyone.

In addition to his victories in the sprint and the long race, he also took pole and the fastest lap of a race that turned into a hammer blow. With this triumph, but above all with the way he achieved it, Marquez sent a clear message that left Francesco Bagnaia, his team-mate and his main rival on paper, in a maze of doubts, and Ducati, his new employer, in awe. Until Sunday it was unclear what margin of safety the Lleida-born rider had in his pocket. 

And it’s likely no one would have been able to know just how comfortable he was had it not been for the front tyre pressure problem that forced him to let through his brother Alex on lap 7 of 26.

With that move, Marc managed to get his tyre temperature up and the pressure back within the regulatory window. With three laps to go, and when he had already completed 60% of the race within the regulatory parameters, he went on the attack and overtook his brother without flinching. Within half a lap he had pulled away by more than half a second.

“I think that Marc today had played a bit with us,” said Bagnaia bluntly. “He gave me a 2.3s [gap] in three laps.”

Marquez’s performance has left the entire Ducati team astounded, both on the sporting side and in the media. If we focus on the former, what he did on Sunday caught many within the Borgo Panigale brand by surprise.

“What Marc did shocked even us,” Davide Tardozzi, team manager of the official Ducati team, told Autosport. “We thought he was holding something back, but when he passed Alex, within two sectors he took six tenths off him.

“Obviously Pecco is pissed off because he couldn’t find the speed that would have allowed him to get close to Marc.”

Tardozzi’s job is probably the most complex of all the team members. He has to do what he can to ensure that common interests prevail in a garage where both sides know that they have the other as their main opponent.

“You will always find me in a central position, the middle of the two, but maybe a bit closer to the one who needs it most, which is usually the one behind,” said the ex-rider.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team, Marc Marquez, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Marco Rigamonti, Marquez’s track engineer, probably has the most proof of the potential that he can achieve with the Desmosedici. For the experienced Italian engineer, who has a wealth of experience in MotoGP, what happened on Sunday will serve as a lesson to him, while also providing him with a measure of the person who sits next to him in the garage.

“When we saw that he let Alex pass, at first we thought he had a problem,” Rigamonti told this writer.

“I thought it was impossible that, after so many laps at Buriram, we hadn’t got the tyre pressure right. He rode so smoothly and without forcing anything, so much so that the pressure didn’t go up as we had calculated.”

Riga, as he is known to his colleagues in the paddock, will take good note of this: “From now on we will take into account much more if Marc has the possibility to ride in clean air.”

Until last year, Ducati only knew Marquez as one of its main enemies, given the titles he denied the ‘red bikes’ in the 11 years he rode for Honda. Marquez’s entourage, on the other hand, has seen him in his best period on the RC213V, with which he was crowned champion six times out of seven possible between 2013 and 2019, before a long period of recovery from the injuries he sustained at Jerez in 2020 practically sent him to purgatory.

It was a real hell for the Spaniard, who had to undergo four operations on his arm and was left with many existential doubts.

But he has emerged from that period as a different person, transformed into a version that some of those closest to him consider even more dangerous for his rivals than the previous one.

“This Marc is another Marc. It is an improved version. Until the injury he didn’t mind overdoing it and pushing too hard, even though he had a big advantage over the rest.

“That sometimes led him to make mistakes that now, coming from the stage he’s coming from, he’s not willing to make,” one of the people closest to the championship leader, someone who has been with him practically since he stepped into the paddock, told Autosport.