By Donovan Fourie | Guest Contributor | MotoGP Analyst
Ducati’s Bounce-Back on Home Turf
Aragon took place exactly as we predicted in the pre-race blog – it was all about Marquez and Ducati. Where the previous race at Silverstone highlighted cracks in Ducati’s armour, Aragon brought forth its strength – rear grip and straight-line speed.
Silverstone is a fast track with sweeping corners and few straights, all playing beautifully into the strengths of Yamaha and Aprilia which are built for carrying high corner speed in a smooth fashion.
Aragon is a stop-go track involving lots of heavy braking, coming to a near standstill mid-corner and then accelerating hard in a low gear onto one of the straights, all on a low-grip surface. Ducati lives for this sort of thing.
Marquez, especially Marc, also thrives on this sort of track, especially ones like Aragon where there are more left-handers than right.
So Marquez won followed gallantly by his little bro Alex in second.
Bagnaia Grabs a Much-Needed Podium
The pair was chased by fellow factory Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia who felt that this podium was like a win given the difficult season he has experienced so far. The Ducati saw different front suspension added for 2025, combined with different electronic setups, that all seemed to work well with Marc Marquez but not so much Pecco, who has been struggling with front feel all year.
Throughout the Aragon weekend, Bagnaia showed a pace that was unable to match even his non-factory Ducati brethren, until the main race when he found something that worked and was able to stay in the race.
Whether the new finding that helped him is exclusive to Aragon or whether we are seeing a reborn Pecco, time will tell.
KTM Shows Pace, But the Front Says No
The other brand that shined at Aragon was KTM whose machine also prefers tracks of a stop-go nature, but more so tracks with low grip. KTM’s biggest problem is mid-corner chatter coming from the rear at a high lean angle, whereas if there isn’t too much lean angle because of low grip then there’s less chatter.
Pedro Acosta led the KTM challenge for most of the weekend until the main race when Sunday Man Brad Binder found himself right up the young Spaniard’s tailpipe. After some tricky races, Binder seemed to have found new confidence and was able to match the podium battle lap after lap. Until another little downfall of the KTM stepped in…
On lap 12, after setting a personal best lap, Binder turned into the fast right-handed turn 3 when suddenly his front disappeared from under him leaving him skidding along the run-off and ending his race.
Binder’s Crash Highlights KTM’s Front-End Flaw
What makes this unique to KTM is that the other brands have a relatively good amount of front-end feel, so the riders can push quite far into corners and the bike will warn them when they are on the edge. The KTM has no such consideration – one second the rider is hooking through a corner much like he has done many times before, and the next second he’s suddenly on the floor with a bewildered expression.
Fellow KTM rider Maverick Vinales had a similar experience on lap 20 when his front disappeared while he was battling for eighth place.
Quartararo and Mir Capitalise
Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo, who had dominating pace at Silverstone, was battling for tenth place when his front gave up on lap 13.
With a bunch of DNFs, Honda rider Joan Mir took advantage of a not-strong but consistent ride to be the top non-Ducati or KTM finisher in seventh, a great result given that, during practice, a top ten looked unlikely.