No longer the best
COTA was supposed to be the redemption weekend for Ducati and Marc Marquez, after two particularly difficult opening rounds of the season in terms of performance and results for the reigning world champion team and rider; instead, it was probably the weekend in which both the Spanish champion and the Borgo Panigale manufacturer realized how difficult it will be to confirm their world title in 2026.
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To understand how complicated **Marc Marquez’s** weekend in ‘his’ Austin was, it is very instructive to watch the latest video published on Ducati’s **official YouTube channel**. In the ‘Texan’ episode of Inside Ducati, the ‘behind the scenes’ of all the problems suffered by #93 during the entire weekend are recounted quite accurately, starting from the terrifying crash on Friday morning in FP1, which further fatigued a body already battered and suffering like Marquez’s, who **also admitted to the Spanish TV channel DAZN** that he has not yet fully recovered from the injury suffered last year in Indonesia.
Taking responsibility
Ducati’s cameras showed a very self-critical Marquez. Regarding the slide, immediately after returning to the pits, the champion from Cervera took responsibility: “The crash is my fault – Marquez is clearly heard saying while talking to his technicians – I lost the rear, I did too much for that lap. There are bumps in that section and the bike gets unsettled. I wanted to push but I was too optimistic there.” Then, closing the analysis of Friday’s free practice, the Ducati superstar utters a phrase that would become relevant again at the end of Sunday’s GP: “Where I struggle the most is in turns 2-3-4, but I think it’s more me than the bike”, having a problem, is the implication.
Then the rest of the weekend passes, Marquez causes a disaster in the Sprint by crashing and taking down Fabio Di Giannantonio, and instead limits the damage in the race, climbing back up to fifth place after dropping to the edge of the points zone following the Long Lap Penalty served.
In the debrief with the engineers after the race, however, the ‘internal’ cameras of the Ducati garage catch him once again in the front row highlighting his physical condition, which is far from ideal: “In the end I felt good – Marquez explains to the engineers, highlighting the good pace maintained in the second half of the race – I could have continued like that for more laps. If I hadn’t lost time overtaking Pecco [Bagnaia] and Enea [Bastianini] I could have reached Di Giannantonio. The bike is critical, but I am too – Marquez then adds honestly – I’m struggling. The bike is certainly one [negative] point, but I am another point. They are two different points. I rewatched the races in Thailand and Brazil and said to myself ‘sh*t, if I fix the first three laps we’re in the hunt for the win’”. For the moment, however, only Aprilia has been celebrating on Sundays.
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