The seasoned manager issues a new warning about Marc Marquez’s physical condition
Davide Brivio, a seasoned manager now with the Trackhouse team, in an interview granted to Corriere dello Sport also commented on the situation of an official Ducati that has not started the MotoGp world championship in the best way. “It would seem that Marc is not at 100 percent form, so he is riding in a condition that is not his own and has to make up for the physical shortcomings. Bagnaia seems not to have found that feeling that he often had and led him to win two titles: from the outside I would say that these seem to be the problems,” he remarked.
A reading that finds confirmation in the words of Marquez himself, far from satisfied after Friday’s free practice at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit. The reigning world champion, speaking to the Spanish newspaper ‘As’, drew a worrying picture: “We are in Q2 and that was the minimum objective, but we have to work hard to take a step forward because now we are not quite there. For now we are from fifth position, fourth at the most: the podium seems quite far away to me, Alex has more chances to win than I have to finish in the top three.” Significant, in this sense, that in the two Friday Andalusian sessions, the star rider from Cervera was more than half a second behind the top, occupied in the morning by Fabio Di Giannantonio and in the afternoon by his brother Alex.
On the physical front, however, Marquez wanted to make himself clear, ruling out that the aftermath of the injury is the main cause of the difficulties: “Physically I’m fine. Alex and Di Giannantonio, for now, are simply faster.” A message that shifts the focus to the technical means, a hot topic at Ducati. Team manager Davide Tardozzi himself had admitted to DAZN’s microphones that “on the first lap both riders complained of exactly the same thing under braking,” while emphasizing how the work of the engineers during the break had brought some improvements on the electronics and set-up front.
Stronger still in his analysis was Pecco Bagnaia, who on the eve of the Spanish weekend had raised a structural problem with the GP26: “The DNA of the GP26 is the same as the GP25, so I can’t express myself one hundred percent. My strong point used to be the braking, but the way the bike is made I can’t exploit it anymore, I have to necessarily ride defensively.” The Piedmontese rider, who has collected just 25 points in the first three races and is ninth in the overall standings, hoped for a change in technical direction: “I would like to go back in the direction of 2024 in the next tests.” A statement that sounds like an outright rejection of the development philosophy followed by Borgo Panigale over the past year.
Echoing the riders’ concerns was also journalist and motorcycling expert Nico Cereghini, who identified the evolution of the bike as the crux of the crisis: “The Ducati of 2024 was probably the best compromise ever seen: balanced, effective, ‘easy’ for riders. The current one, on the other hand, has lost this quality. Today it is a bike that tends to go straight, that struggles to close the corner. This completely changes the way of riding.” According to Cereghini, the problem transcends Marquez’s physical condition: “Even when he returns to 100 percent, he won’t be able to change this scenario: the problem is not just the rider, it’s technical.”
The overall context therefore sees a Ducati struggling in the face of competition, Aprilia in the lead, which has made a definite leap in quality. Brivio, who with his Trackhouse team fields the Aprilia of Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez, is observing the situation from a privileged position and not without satisfaction: back in 2024 he warned that the house of Noale was ready to take up the challenge to the dominant Ducati, and the results of this season’s start seem to prove him right. Leading the riders’ standings is in fact Marco Bezzecchi with the official Aprilia, confirming a reversal of hierarchies that until a few months ago seemed hard to imagine.
