The Aragon MotoGP race earlier today evolved into an epic battle between Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Marc Marquez (Honda). Bagnaia led from the start with Marquez shadowing him as the pair set a blistering pace that no other rider could match. With three laps remaining, Marquez began to attack Bagnaia repeatedly and pass him several times only to have Bagnaia immediately re-pass Marquez on the corner exit. By holding off Marquez, Bagnaia took his first MotoGP win. This race will be remembered as one of the classic confrontations between the dominant five-time MotoGP champion Marquez and the emerging, younger star Bagnaia.
Joan Mir (Suzuki) finished in third position roughly four seconds behind the leaders. Maverick Viñales made his debut with Aprilia by finishing in 18th position.
For full results of today’s race, take a look here. You can find additional details on the MotoGP site.
With GP racing I sometimes wonder if the brand of motorcycle is not as important as the rider’s skills. As an analogy, do I really care which keyboard an author used to type their novel? Do I need to know which computer Dirck uses to bring us this motorcycle news? (Dirck, what DO you use?)
My desktop is a Mac Mini with Apple’s new M1 chip and 16GB of RAM, while Kim is using Windows. Our server is off-site running Linux.
Thanks, I too have the M1
The brand of motorcycle does matter. We’ve seen cases where one or another bike has an insurmountable advantage on certain tracks.
Some years ago, if you weren’t riding an orange honda, or Jorge Lorenzo’s particular blue Yamaha, you had no chance for victory at all. During this period I did care, because I knew I was basically watching a “fixed” competition, where the winning candidates were already decided before the race started. It’s certainly improved since then.
Marc rode his butt off trying to get that win, congrats to Pecco on his first win.
I’d like to see Marc switch it up and go to Suzuki, or Ducati even if he has to take a pay cut. The Honda seems pretty far down the order in overall competitiveness these days IMO without the Ant Man riding it.
Bagnaia deserved the win. MM93 tried his best, and looks like he might be coming back from his time off from surgery. Suzuki worked up to third, impressive. Ducati ran the last 3 races without the wheel covers, and without the rear wheel spoon underneath. Miller said they “found something”, and it looks like it. But still its all about the rider, El Diablo worked his way to the back, and Vinales and Rossi battled it out for 17th. The championship is Quartararo’s to loose. It used to be no one could ride the Ducati fast all the time. They have the speed, and even Lorenzo mentioned before the race, Ducati looks like it leans over more, and it shows in their corner speed. That everyone was within 1 sec in qualifying, everyone is really really fast these days. Pecco deserves the Win, he did it. can he do it again, we will see.
9 of 16 corners at Aragon are left. Something to keep in mind about the MM93 result.
This new wave of racers is simply amazing. Why does Jack Miller have a factory ride?
I predict Viñales getting fewer and fewer mentions on this and other sites.
He didnt seem to be having any trouble with the right turns either
Not sure Marquez will ever dominate the new breed (Quartararo, Bagnaia, Jorge Martin, etc.) like he did his past competition. He might claim he is “not the old Marquez” for quite some time, but this is a new level of competition IMO. These kids will only get faster as they gain more MotoGP experience.
Think you are right Dirck. He’s not having any trouble beating the guys he did in the past, (several of which have retired or should be) but the new kids on the block are giving him fits.
Then again, he isn’t going to make it easy for them either. He still has some skills whether completely healed or not.
Mir won 2020 Champ with how many race wins…1.
I don’t doubt a fully recovered MM can win a few races in 2022 but he doesn’t have to win any races to win the 2022 championship. Just let all the youngsters fight it out at the very front, all of them taking turns at the front winning and losing races, and MM finishing strong all season like Mir did in 2020. It seems like a shoe in of a plan for MM…if he can let it happen.
I’m not ready to write off Marquez yet. His absence showed us that the Honda is not nearly as competitive as he makes it look. I expect Honda to fix that. He’s also not back to his best. Even if he never gets there, he’ll get more familiar and comfortable with how he is and will continue to improve.
It was noteworthy that in his last big title run, it wasn’t just the wins that won it, it was a bunch of 2nd places, showing that he had the patience and maturity to play for points. I expect he’ll get back to that, too.
It’s just conjecture on my part, but I think they also made the Honda worse during Marc’s absence. Before, it was a difficult and severe bike to ride, but Marc could leverage the bike’s strengths so effectively that it didn’t matter. It seems as though they’ve tried to smooth out the edges with input from the other three riders but ended up with a package that Marc can’t leverage yet is still a beeyatch to ride.
Nobody has more resources than Honda, though, so I doubt this predicament will last past the end of 2021.
I’m not ready to write MM off either.
MM has been and still is my favorite pilot since his first year in MotoGP.
I respected VR and JL but never warmed to them like MM.
my point is only that “if” MM will never be the same, post shoulder injury, and he wants to win a couple more champions, i think he can by being consistent like Mir did in 2020.
I don’t know if laying back and not engaging in the heavy action at the very front will ever sit well with MM though. Seems he is currently employing an ‘win or crash’ strategy in some type of desperation.
I agree with the consensus here that the new guard presents a considerable obstacle to Marquez with respect to winning future championships.
I still think Marquez will win future championships. They won’t come easy, and he won’t be the dominator he was before. But I don’t think he is done.
That’s my opinion, too. Marquez may or may not return to full form. But even if he does, he’ll have his hands full. The new kids on the block are legit.
Champions typically reign for about 8 years. The going gets tough after that.
“9 of 16 corners at Aragon are left.” Come to think of it, I like deep left leans more than I like right ones.
That victory for Pecco was purely a triumph of geometry.
He trusted his lines. He would not deviate. He had the shapes, the physics, all worked out. Short of Marc pulling something wholly unexpected and unrealistic out of his bag of tricks, Pecco knew he had him covered.
of all the slice and dice action between two riders that i’ve ever seen…I don’t recall ever seeing one rider (PB) seemingly completely and absolutely un-phased by the competing rider’s attempts and rebuttals.
MM was slicing and dicing and PB (save for one re-pass) simply appeared not even to care. as if PB could have closed his eye’s and finished on auto-pilot while MM was buzzing all around from every angle.
-if a person digitally removed MM from the final series of passing attempts, leaving only footage of a lone PB riding the track…one would hardly think that resulting footage, of a lone PB, odd in any way.
same wouldn’t be said for MM if one digitally removed PB from that same footage. that would look like insanity for MM.
yes, it seems odd that this was bagnaia’s first win. he seemed so smooth, so unfazed by marquez. no wacky lines, no scary slides, no miracle saves. and he didn’t let mir’s tire-saving strategy work for mir either. it was like an old doohan/rossi/polen “win-at-the-slowest-possible-speed” utter domination where the outcome was never in doubt. very impressive. we’ll see if he can do it again/if his crew can get it set like that again.
He certainly was unfazed. Cool as a cucumber and fully focused despite his 175 bpm heartbeat and the constant attacks. If that isn’t pure professionalism, I don’t know what is.
These youngsters of the past couple years have really made me love motoGP again, the excitement is back.
And MM…he’s still a bad ass and showed he’s on his way back. He’s got time left but it won’t be as easy for him anymore. He did a great job putting up a fight in Aaragon. I’ve warmed up to him. I like anyone who is not just a competitor deep inside, but anyone who gets the most enjoyment in life doing it. He truly has fun out there.
The guy who finished 18th gets a mention here. Interesting.
It’s called “newsworthy”, pretty old concept.
It was a great race between the 8-time World Champion and the upstart. Pecco has shown flashes of brilliance in the past, but this race was clearly Champion quality. Marc may not be quite 100% yet, but he also showed the skill and tenacity that has made him Champion.
Lots of other riders put in very good rides, but these two were in a class of their own today.
What a great final 3 laps! Bagnaia sure showed his mettle and skill. Marquez sure tried to winit. I think he passed Bagnaia 7 times only to be re-passed.
Wonder how upbeat Vinales was after battling Rossi for 18th?
It’s interesting how he kept trying the same thing – going in hot but then running wide only to be repassed by PB who was rock solid in sticking with his program.
I think the switch is flipped. MM finally had/has enough of a problem to possibly (probably?) forever change what he was to what he is. Perhaps he will again dominate, but if so it will be through intelligence and learning, how to ride according to what he is now. He will have to become a Prost vs his former Senna.
I’m intensely curious what in that triggered the “awaiting moderation” status.
Likely “TimC”.
LOL
About half my posts trigger the same. I haven’t been able to recognize any pattern.