Making Marquez great again…
Hail to the chief. Marc’s coming home. Not so much a case of MAGA but MMGA (Make Marquez Great Again). Because that’s what happens when he goes to the US, making this potentially the weekend that he reminds his rivals what he is made of. And that he is ready to become unbeatable again, on his new Ducati.
That’s what the statistics say, anyway, though there may be a few riders (and fans) with a different view. It will certainly focus the attention on the coming weekend.
Those stats are beyond impressive. Nor were they accrued only at the swoopy track outside Austin, Texas. Seems anywhere in the US is really special for Marc. Probably Canada too, if they had a GP.
Marc won in MotoGP’s last and his first visit to Laguna Seca in 2013, and five times at Indianapolis, unbeaten in Moto2 and MotoGP between 2011 and the final Brickyard outing in 2015.
By then he’d already taken control at CoTA in Texas. He was the first winner there in 2013, and repeated it as if by right until 2018. He was leading by miles in 2019 when his Honda electronics threw a fit – an early warning of the bike’s growing uncertain temper.
He was back in 2021 and won again. Only in 2022 (he missed ’23 injured) was it different. His growing struggle with the bike and with his squiffy arm saw him qualify ninth, then he was left on the line with another electronic glitch. He finished lap one 18th, then battled back to sixth.
It makes this an important race for the former king. If he is going to reassert his dominance, this is the time to do it. Not only does he have a Ducati, but it’s last year’s… and free from the chatter problems troubling Bagnaia and co.
And Acosta, second-race podium notwithstanding, is still a beginner, and his KTM/GasGas not quite the equal of last year’s Ducati. Or is it? Or will Alex Rins, who beat Rossi here in 2019, and then won again last year on a Honda give Yamaha something to celebrate?
Can hardly wait to find out.
‘Seems any US track is special for Marquez’