A solitary Alex Márquez (4th) couldn’t find his rhythm

Things had gone well on Saturday: Alex Márquez finished second in the sprint, behind his brother Marc. The younger Marquez brother would have liked to repeat that result, and starting from third on the grid gave him a good starting position. However, neither brother got off to a good start, and the Gresini rider dropped back to sixth place.

The early stages were telling: when the opportunity arose to overtake Marc, Alex held back – and in doing so lost his rhythm, allowing Jorge Martín (Aprilia) and Raúl Fernández (Trackhouse-Aprilia) to overtake him.

Alex Marquez: “I didn’t shift into third gear”

The 30-year-old cites two reasons. “I couldn’t find a gap to overtake. Then I made a mistake. Coming out of Turn 2 into Turn 3, I didn’t shift into third gear,” he explained. As a result, he got caught up in the pack through the corners and lost a few positions.

He made a swift comeback. At the start of the second lap, he overtook Fernández in Turn 1; shortly afterwards, he capitalised on a mistake by Martín in Turn 10 and overtook him there too. “Later on, I found my rhythm. Step by step, I overtook riders and was consistent,” said Márquez. However, it wasn’t enough to keep up with the top three in the long run.

Alex Márquez alone in 4th: the tyre paradox of Aragon

By the middle of the race, the race was already decided. Although Alex Márquez was at times setting the same lap times as third-placed Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia), he was unable to close the gap. At the finish, he was five seconds behind the Italian. It soon became clear why he couldn’t keep up with the leaders: he’d started to experience problems with tyre grip as the race went on.

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Compared to Silverstone, he found it puzzling that this time it was mainly the front tyre that had deteriorated. “At Silverstone, it was the other way round. The others managed their tyres much better than I did,” he analysed. His conclusion was matter-of-fact: “It was exactly the race I’d expected before the start.” In the World Championship, Alex Márquez lies in 9th place with 128 points.