The signs suggesting Marc Marquez’s 1000-day MotoGP win wait is ending

A few years ago, Marc Marquez said in a pre-event press conference that Aragon was one of the circuits he would mark on his calendar where he feels like has one of the the best possibilities to win the grand prix.

It’s a circuit he has won at six times in his grand prix career, five of which coming in MotoGP and four of them in a row between 2016 and 2019. Largely, it’s anticlockwise nature plays into the strengths of his riding style.

• 2024 Aragon MotoGP - Friday Practice Results

Throughout the last 11 years in the premier class, Marquez has taken an astonishing 29 victories on anticlockwise tracks.

As such, this weekend’s Aragon GP - the first since 2022 - has been seen as his best chance to date at ending a victory drought that extends over 1000 days back to the 2021 Emilia Romagna GP.

Arriving at the Spanish venue, the riders were met with a completely new track surface. Predictably, the opening 45-minute session of the day saw lap times well off, with Marc Marquez leading the way on a 1m48.289s.

FP1 was also characterised by a lot of riders taking trips through the run-off area, with grip at a premium as the track rubbered in. By the end of the afternoon running, the track conditions were evidently at a better level as Marquez dipped underneath the 1m46s bracket for the first time ever at Aragon.

The Gresini Ducati rider managed a 1m45.801s in the closing stages of second practice to lead Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro - who was last at the end of FP1 - by 0.272s. 

While not abnormal to see a reasonably big field spread at one of the longer laps on the calendar, 1.054s covering the top 10 is a pretty sizeable gap at the end of day one - especially compared to the same session in 2022, which saw the top 10 covered by just 0.491s.

The field will likely close in as the weekend progresses with more rubber laid down on the new asphalt. Slippery, evolving track conditions do suit Marquez; he’s one of the best when it comes to flag-to-flag race scenarios.

And with any unknown track situation, having a year-old bike underneath you is generally a help. That machine is a lot more dialled in when it comes to settings than the latest factory spec machine, and that perhaps goes someway to helping explain why Marquez on his GP23 had a distinct edge over his GP24-mounted title rivals.

Lap times hint at victory for Marquez?

In the second practice classification, Marquez led the way, with Pramac’s Jorge Martin the next Ducati in fourth - 0.578s off the pace. Championship leader Francesco Bagnaia was sixth on his GP24, 0.790s off Marquez’s time. 

Franco Morbidelli in seventh was 0.904s down, while Enea Bastianini was 1.230s off in 15th - though he did have a lap set to improve on this scuppered by yellow flags for Jack Miller’s crash at Turn 16 late on in FP2.

Over a single lap, Marquez is unsurprisingly making up his time in sectors two and four - both characterised by long left turns. In sector two he is 0.222s clear of the field, while in the final split his advantage is just 0.077s. 

His ideal lap time is a 1m45.787s at this stage, and currently he’s the only one even on ideal times in the 1m45s, though this will likely change tomorrow.

For the first time since the 2021 Americas GP, Marquez topped both of Friday’s practice sessions. Not for nothing, but he did go on to win that grand prix - his 29th career MotoGP victory on an anticlockwise circuit.

Because of the evolving track and the newness of the surface, getting a good gauge on long runs is difficult. But delving into the lap time analysis sheets does offer some suggestions of where the pecking order is, and, again, it all points towards Marquez having the edge.

Looking at the best lap times for the top riders and main title contenders in second practice on tyres at their most worn, Marquez had some seriously impressive form.

On a 17-lap-old medium rear tyre, Marquez managed a 1m47.573s. Championship leader Bagnaia was actually faster at 1m47.553s, but this was done on a medium tyre with 11 laps on it. 

Martin was some way off on a 1m47.997s on a 12-lap-old medium rear. Bastianini was further still at 1m48.230s pace on an 11-lap-old medium.

While the two factory Aprilias shone brightly in practice two, with Espargaro heading Maverick Vinales, the RS-GP’s struggles to preserve a tyre were evident. 

Espargaro managed a 1m48.362s on an 11-lap-old soft rear, while Vinales’ best was a 1m48.755s with 10 laps on his soft. Neither put in any meaningful scrubbed medium running in practice two, but generally in recent rounds the Aprilia is no match for the Ducati on this compound over a grand prix distance.

Marquez felt the previous round in Austria was his best weekend of the year, with the ride height device issue at the start squandering his hopes of fighting for victory in the grand prix. And on Thursday at Aragon, he said it was “crucial” he start was a strong base to have any hope of fighting the leading GP24s.

“If the race were now, I wouldn’t be aiming for second place,” Marquez was reported by es.motorsport.com as saying when reflecting on his Friday at Aragon.

Clearly, Austria was just a stepping stone. And now he’s passed the first major test of the Aragon weekend, the end to his 1000-plus-day wait for another win in MotoGP looks much closer than ever…