{"id":749349,"date":"2026-06-20T19:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T19:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749349\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T19:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T19:01:14","slug":"marc-marquez-2026-ducati-ready-to-win-the-title-riders-need-to-do-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749349\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc Marquez: \u20182026 Ducati ready to win the title; riders need to do better’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marc Marquez<\/a> says that his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia<\/a>\u2019s victory in the Czech Grand Prix sprint proves that Ducati\u2019s 2026 MotoGP bike is capable of winning the title.<\/p>\n

Lining up third on the grid, Bagnaia grabbed the lead at the start on his factory Ducati, passing both polesitter Ai Ogura<\/a> and VR46\u2019s Fabio di Giannantonio<\/a> on the run down to Turn 1.<\/p>\n

For the remainder of the race, the three-time world champion came under intense pressure from the Trackhouse Aprilia rider, who closed in rapidly on him in the final laps.<\/p>\n

But Bagnaia didn\u2019t put a foot wrong and eventually crossed the finish line 0.241s ahead, claiming his first sprint win of 2026 and the fifth for Ducati in nine attempts.<\/p>\n

More significantly, it allowed Ducati to close the gap to Aprilia in all three championships, particularly with points leader Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> crashing out on the penultimate lap and Jorge Martin<\/a> only managing fifth.<\/p>\n

Asked about Ducati\u2019s progress in recent races, Marquez said the onus is now on the marque’s riders to do justice to the bike at their disposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say to you that the bike is ready to win the championship. It\u2019s a matter of riders. We need to do better,\u201d he told MotoGP.com.<\/p>\n

Marquez\u2019s comment follows similar remarks on Friday, when he suggested Aprilia didn\u2019t have the best bike on the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Aprilia is not ahead; its riders are. That\u2019s where we have to keep working, because the Ducati is capable of winning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Marc <\/p>\n

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team<\/p>\n

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Marquez himself finished third in the half-distance race at Brno, just after a second behind the top Aprilia of Ogura.<\/p>\n

While the nine-time world champion scored a memorable win in Hungary earlier this month, he is yet to return to full fitness, and has to come up with creative ways to avoid fatigue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m happy with how we tried to manage energy, but in this way, you cannot fight or do a perfect weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday, I pushed four laps in the FP1 and four laps in the FP2. This morning, I was just concentrating more on the rhythm.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the way to try the things and the way to take the reference is super difficult – but it’s the only way I can survive the weekend right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about his expectations for Sunday\u2019s grand prix, he added: \u201cTop 5 is the result [I can aim for], especially starting from fifth place. Today I lost some positions at the start. Let’s see if I can start better and try to be close to the top guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from Czech GP – Saturday<\/p>\n

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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Toprak<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fermin<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Valentino<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Cal<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marc<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Joan<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Maverick<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Alex<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Pedro<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fermin<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Brad<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Jorge<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Diogo<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Diogo<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marc<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marc<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Pedro<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Jorge<\/p>\n


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\"Jack<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Race<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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\"Track<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Ai<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Marc<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Francesco<\/p>\n


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\n Czech GP – Saturday, in photos
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Read Also:<\/p>\n

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Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc Marquez says that his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia\u2019s victory in the Czech Grand Prix sprint proves that Ducati\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,5747,5746,8542,4280,359931,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-749349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brno-circuit","tag-czech-gp","tag-ducati-team","tag-marc-marquez","tag-marc-marquez-u20182026-ducati-ready-to-win-the-title-riders-need-to-do-better","tag-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749349","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=749349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}