ALEX MARQUEZ MISSES THE RIGHT GEAR AS HE FINISHES FOURTH IN ARAGON

Alex Marquez’s Aragon race ended with a lonely fourth place, after a start that never allowed him to build the momentum he wanted. The Gresini rider had looked set for a strong result on Saturday’s sprint, where he finished second behind his brother Marc from third on the grid. But in Sunday’s main event, both brothers struggled at the start, and Alex dropped as far as sixth.

The turning point came early when Marquez had an opening to pass Marc. Instead, he hesitated and lost his rhythm—an error that allowed Jorge Martin (Aprilia) and Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse-Aprilia) to move past him. Explaining what went wrong, Marquez said: “I couldn’t find a place to overtake. Then I made a mistake. At the exit of Turn 2 to 3 I didn’t shift into third gear.” He added that the mistake put him into traffic through the corners and cost him several positions.

Despite the setback, Marquez’s recovery was quick. At the start of the second lap he passed Fernandez at Turn 1, then shortly after he capitalised on Martin’s mistake at Turn 10 to take another position. “Later I found my rhythm. Step by step I was overtaking riders and I was constant,” he said. However, the pace at the front proved too difficult to sustain, and he couldn’t close the gap to the podium.

From mid-race onward, the train had effectively moved on. Marquez was sometimes matching the times of third-placed Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia), but he couldn’t make real progress. In the end, he finished five seconds behind Bezzecchi.

The Spaniard pointed to tyre grip as the key issue. “It was exactly the race I expected before the start,” he concluded. He also noted a contrast with Silverstone: “In Silverstone it was the other way around. The others managed the tyre much better than me.” At Aragon, he felt the front tyre was the one that faded most.