Magical Marquez ends long MotoGP drought in Aragon

ALCAÑIZ (Agencies): Marc Marquez conjured a magical performance in front of his home fans at the Aragon MotoGP on Sunday to end a three-year winless run. He took the chequered flag by almost five seconds from Jorge Martin with rookie Pedro Acosta in third. The six-time MotoGP champion, whose last grand prix win was back in 2021, completed a dream weekend after claiming Saturday’s sprint by an equally wide margin on his Ducati satellite Gresini bike. Marquez soaked up the moment with a victory lap, hopping off his bike to kiss the ground and perform an impromptu dance in front of his ecstatic supporters. “Amazing race” he beamed. “It’s incredible to win in front of the fans. With all the pace, it was difficult to focus riding the last 10 laps.” Martin now leads the riders standings by 23 points after double world champion Francesco Bagnaia crashed out, five laps from the line.

Marquez had been knocking at the door all season, with eight runner-up finishes in sprints and races combined. At Aragon, in front of massed ranks of adoring supporters, the Spaniard blasted that door wide open. The master of Motorland had seized pole with a peerless qualifying display, claiming the front row by 0.84 sec, a margin of supremacy not seen in over a decade. He then turned the sprint into a procession, leading across the line almost three seconds clear of Jorge Martin. Having tucked away Saturday’s appetiser, he proceeded to wolf down Sunday’s main course with the appetite of a rider much younger than his 31 years. Marquez enjoyed a trouble-free getaway, leading Acosta into the first corner as Bagnaia slipped from third to sixth. He quickly pulled more than two seconds clear of the chasing pack. With 10 laps to go the only thing standing between Marquez and a memorable victory was one of his infamous tumbles. But he wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. He took the chequered flag a yawning 4.789sec from Martin who said: “I’m happy for Marc, so happy for him after such a long three years”. The only drama came late on when brother Alex Marquez and Bagnaia collided, both crashing out.

The dream double for Marc Marquez, not only dissipated 1,043 days of hurt since his last Grand Prix win on October 24, 2021, at Emilia Romagna. It also moved him up to third in the standings on 229pts, and vindicated the decision by Ducati to pick him over Jorge Martin as Bagnaia’s teammate on the factory bike next season. It should be quite a ride in 2025, the two motorbike titans, with 10 world title between them, going toe-to-toe under the same garage roof. Bagnaia last month forecast, with a hefty dose of humour, that their relationship would be either “super good or a disaster”. Sunday’s success kept Marquez firmly in the hunt for a seventh title in the top category and a ninth in all. That is a scenario that must have seemed a forlorn prospect during the dark days of injuries and crashes that derailed his last few tortuous seasons. That rotten luck began 26 laps into the 2020 season at Jerez. A crash fractured his right arm, ruling Marquez out for the rest of that year and then the first two races of 2021.

Four surgeries, multiple crashes, and a diagnosis of diplopia, or double vision, followed as Marquez took a battering both physically and mentally. But on Sunday that was all swept aside as he notched up his first win for his new team since jumping bike from Honda. Celebrating in front of supporters wildly waving flags bearing his race number 93 – the year of his birth – he gave the impression this meant as much as any of his previous 59 MotoGP wins. Given all he has endured, Marquez had considered retiring by the end of last season if things didn’t improve. As he left Aragon, hanging up his motorbike leathers was the last thing on his mind.