Marc Márquez Completes the Task in Aragón

Marc Márquez was widely expected to be the favourite this weekend in Aragón, and the Spanish rider lived up to the high expectations placed upon him. His superiority was evident from the first free practice session in the morning, where the Cervera genius was nine-tenths ahead of his brother Álex, the only one to stay within a second of disadvantage in that session. Marc was in a league of his own.

The dominance continued in the afternoon, with the current championship leader comfortably leading the entire practice and also being the fastest by far in the final minutes, when everyone usually puts on a couple of new sets of soft tyres to attack the clock and secure their place in Q2. Marc Márquez only needed one attempt to smash the clock and saved the second soft tyre for one of the weekends where he is most confident.

"The intention was to go out with intensity, as I do every Friday, to position myself. I have this ease of arriving at the first practice and setting a good time. It's true that in the afternoon they got much closer with the 'time attacks', but I felt comfortable. It's Friday, and it's not about how it starts, but how it ends, so we have to continue with the same intensity," he explained after completing a dominant Friday at the Motorland Aragón circuit.

It's true that in the second attempt at a fast lap, all his rivals got closer, especially his brother Álex, who was just two-tenths off the best lap of the day, but in terms of race pace, Marc's difference is over half a second, and much would have to change for the situation to turn around on Saturday and Sunday.

Marc Márquez's only rival in Aragón is Marc Márquez himself, and that forces him not to let his guard down: "It's dangerous to be complacent because even though it seems like I'm ahead, I'm pushing. It's not that I'm riding with one hand; I'm pushing because otherwise, I'd be with the others. To have that extra margin, you have to know how to manage risk, know when and how the situation requires taking risks." The rider from Lleida speaks from experience, as this year he already made a mistake in another of his championship strongholds, the Texan circuit of Austin.

No one doubts Marc Márquez's superiority on a track where most of the corners are left-handers (in the second sector, full of such corners, the Spaniard dominates) and with little grip on the asphalt. Ideal conditions for the Cervera rider, where anything other than a double victory on his part would be a surprise.

His main rival today, his brother Álex, accepted this superiority with a sense of humour: "In the morning, I was a bit worried, but then I saw that in 2019 he was 1.6 seconds ahead of the second, and I thought: 'well, 0.9 today isn't that much.' It's something I expected, so I focused on my own thing." For now, Álex is the best of the mortals and slightly ahead of the rest of the rivals. Two second places for the younger Márquez would be a great result on a track where he should minimise damage compared to his brother.

The Gresini rider is the standout leader of that second division where everything is tighter, and new secondary players appear. Maverick Viñales and Joan Mir tied for third place, ahead of Pedro Acosta, Johann Zarco, and Brad Binder. That is, three KTMs and two Hondas between the Márquez brothers and the next Ducati, the rookie Fermín Aldeguer, eighth, who preceded a lukewarm Pecco Bagnaia. The Italian is still in a slump, although at least he qualified within the top ten, who have their place secured in Q2, where there are currently no Aprilias or Yamahas, which will have to fight for a privileged spot on the grid in the Q1 repechage.

The smaller categories were also dominated by their respective leaders. In Moto2, Manu González led the classification ahead of Brazilian Diogo Moreira, with Arón Canet in a modest eleventh position, while in Moto3, José Antonio Rueda did the same in the smallest class, where five Spaniards occupied the top five positions.