It was within just 1.7 seconds of his reach, but Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo Team) will have to wait at least another Grand Prix to have a chance at completing his history-making comeback and win a seventh MotoGP crown. After seven weekends of glory in a row for the #93, it was instead Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) who came out swinging in Barcelona and took his second Grand Prix win of the season \u2013 a redemptive ride after crashing out the lead in the Tissot Sprint. Now, both arrive in Misano on two very different missions.<\/p>\n
NO TITLE AT MISANO: the wait for the comeback rolls on<\/p>\n
There may be no match point for Marc Marquez but there\u2019s plenty of pride to uphold with it being the second home-round for Ducati. The #93 has five wins here, the most on the grid, although it isn\u2019t one of his most emblematic venues. He also knows he can set up that Championship point for Japan \u2013 the easiest way is a seemingly foregone P7 or better in the Sprint. Meanwhile, Alex Marquez has never won back-to-back Grands Prix in MotoGP but with it also being his Gresini squad\u2019s home event, the #73 can\u2019t be written off. Still, they are far from the only home team on the grid \u2013 and there\u2019s an armada of motivated Italian riders too.<\/p>\n
P3 FIGHT: Bagnaia and Aprilia reload<\/p>\n
On the rostrum in every San Marino GP since 2020 \u2013 when he took his first MotoGP podium \u2013 Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) endured a tough Catalan GP weekend before staging a notable comeback from P21 to P7 on Sunday. He was starting to feel the heat with Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia Racing) closing him down too, but Bez\u2019s Barcelona struggles means that it\u2019s now 40 points that split the duo. Just as both race on home turf, so do their factories \u2013 and Aprilia would enjoy nothing more than claiming Misano for themselves. Jorge Martin, on the other side of the Aprilia box, returns to where he tested before he returned from injury back in July too, with more and more kilometers on the clock as he looks to get back in the fight at the front.<\/p>\n
KTM ON A ROLL: taking the fight to Ducati<\/p>\n
Enea Bastianini (Red Bull KTM Tech3) led orange charge in Barcelona, and that\u2019s not even one of his best venues \u2013 so the \u2018Beast\u2019 will be in the spotlight at Misano. Here, he\u2019s both won in MotoGP and taken some incredibly memorable podiums, from his first ever rostrum finish to his street-fighting 2024 charge past Martin to the podium.Likewise continuing to make progress even if Barcelona wasn\u2019t the home podium he was gunning for is Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing). He was fast but he was also beaten by Bastianini \u2013 what better way to return the favour than aiming to reverse that on the #23\u2019s home turf.<\/p>\n
Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) was also in good form to challenge for the top five in Barcelona, part of that stunning three-rider battle \u2013 so close it almost looked like a display run. Meanwhile, Maverick Vi\u00f1ales (Red Bull KTM Tech 3) continues to recover from his shoulder injury, adding the kilometers and likely encouraged by the form shown by the trio able to push at the front last time out.<\/p>\n
PODIUM CONTENDERS: high targets and seeking redemption<\/p>\n
P3 in the Barcelona Sprint was followed up with fifth on Sunday for Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP). Now, the Frenchman returns to the scene of his 2021 MotoGP title and one of his first big standout performances from his rookie year. Three P7s and a P9 from last year\u2019s Grands Prix and Sprints \u2013 and fresh from a first test with Yamaha\u2019s V4 in a private outing in Barcelona \u2013 \u2018El Diablo\u2019 is in form and the Iwata factory have that here too. That very V4 will also wildcard this weekend in the hands of test rider Augusto Fernandez.<\/p>\n
Franco Morbidelli (Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team) had a Catalan GP to forget but this is both his and the team\u2019s home round. He\u2019s tied with teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio and it\u2019s a big weekend for both. Morbidelli took a Sprint podium at Misano last year and a first win here in 2020, whereas \u2018Diggia\u2019 took a Sprint P3 in Barcelona but has never had a top eight at Misano. Don\u2019t discount Fermin Aldeguer (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) from a rostrum challenge either, despite a tricky last two rounds.<\/p>\n
CHASING TOP 10s: battles aplenty through the pack<\/p>\n
Johann Zarco (CASTROL Honda LCR) was disappointed after his fall from fifth on Sunday last weekend and will want more, whereas Luca Marini (Honda HRC Castrol) took eighth last weekend as his uptick in impressive performances continues. His teammate Joan Mir struggled had a tougher one after having been the standout a couple of races ago, and Mir\u2019s best Sunday result in 2024 was taken here. Meanwhile, returning to the top ten for the first time since Mugello was Ai Ogura (Trackhouse MotoGP Team) and Misano is the scene of his last Moto2\u2122 win last year. Teammate Raul Fernandez is without a top ten since Austria but a best Misano result of P8 in 2023 spurs him on.<\/p>\n
P9 and a best result of 2025 last time out for Miguel Oliveira (Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP) is something he\u2019ll want to build from, whereas teammate Jack Miller hopes for a top ten for the first time since Brno. After a first DNF of 2025, Alex Rins (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) seeks to bounce back at the San Marino GP. Welcomed back after injury, Somkiat Chantra (IDEMITSU Honda LCR) gets ready for a new challenge at Misano too.<\/p>\n
Home turf for many, enemy territory for others, and even a balance of the two for some on the grid, Misano brings with it a sense of unpredictability year after year. In the area where so many young Italians get their first taste of motorcycling and the first dreams of becoming Champion, what lies ahead at the Misano World Circuit \u201cMarco Simoncelli\u201d? It\u2019s either a match point in Japan or a huge twist in the tale on the horizon \u2013 so tune in for more MotoGP this weekend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was within just 1.7 seconds of his reach, but Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo Team) will have to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-133049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}