Pace analysis suggests Ducati still top despite tight Mugello MotoGP practice

For six of the last seven Italian Grands Prix held at the picturesque Mugello, Ducati has flown the Tricolore high and proud as its machines have taken to the top step of the podium. In 2017, Andrea Dovizioso took Ducati’s first win at Mugello since 2009; Jorge Lorenzo followed that up in 2018, while in 2019 Danilo Petrucci bested Marc Marquez and Dovizioso in an epic battle.

Fabio Quartararo interrupted this run in 2021 on the Yamaha, but in the subsequent three years Pecco Bagnaia ensured the top of the podium was stained in red in front of a passionately Ducati-biased fanbase.

If there was ever a better time for that run to continue, it surely would be 2025. Marc Marquez comes to Mugello off the back of a perfect weekend last time out Aragon, where he topped all sessions on his way to another brace of wins.

He leads the championship by 32 points and has seemingly surmounted the hurdles he’d recently been facing following numerous key errors in grand prix situations. To boot, Pecco Bagnaia looked to have found his form again after a change in brake disc size returned to him the confidence in the front end he had lost.

And then there is the in-form Alex Marquez. He may not be on a red Ducati, but it is a Ducati - and that’s all that matters to the Bologna-based manufacturer’s bosses.

As Friday wound to a close at Mugello, no Ducati topped a timesheet in either session. Marco Bezzecchi was fastest on the factory Aprilia in FP1, while Maverick Vinales led the way for KTM at the end of the hour-long Practice.

He did so by just 0.110s from Bagnaia, while Marc Marquez rounded out the top three from Alex Marquez. So, Ducati isn’t exactly far away - and we have seen already this year that it’s not necessarily been the cream of the field in qualifying anyway, as evidenced by Fabio Quartararo’s three poles on the bounce from Jerez to Silverstone.

A deeper look into the long running pace from the afternoon session at Mugello shows close lap times at the sharp end, but there are crucial details that point to Ducati - and in particular both Marquez brothers - as maintaining an edge on the field.

Marc Marquez achieves day one target at Mugello

During Thursday’s pre-event press conference at Mugello, championship leader Marc Marquez noted that simply being close on pace to younger brother Alex Marquez and factory team-mate Pecco Bagnaia would be considered a very good start to the weekend in his books.

That was mission accomplished at the end of Friday’s running at the Italian Grand Prix, in what was a busy day for the 32-year-old.

All three factory Ducati riders had an updated aero fairing homologated for this round, with Bagnaia (who didn't end up using it) and Fabio Di Giannantonio having one each in FP1, while Marc Marquez tested it in Practice.

The overall feeling was positive, though he later admitted that he will park it for the remainder of the weekend and revert to the standard version from Saturday. This goes some way to explaining his third place on the timesheets, though he also told the media: “The manufacturers are working hard and things are getting getting tighter: being fastest on every track in every session is impossible.”

Mugello isn’t a bad track for Marc Marquez, but it’s not one of his best. His last win - and so far his only one - came in 2014. As far as he is concerned, this weekend is one to “lose as few points as possible” to younger brother Alex Marquez.

Indeed, a look at the long running pace shows Alex Marquez with a slight edge on Marc Marquez aboard the Gresini-run GP24. That is, of course, the bike that won the Italian Grand Prix last year in Pecco Bagnaia’s hands. So, it’s not exactly surprising to see the GP24 running well straight out of the blocks at Mugello.

Alex Marquez completed a nine-lap representative sample on the medium rear in Practice this afternoon at an average pace of 1m46.290s. He put 14 total laps on that tyre - the last of which a solid 1m46.436s.

Marc Marquez posted 16 total laps on the medium rear and managed an average pace of 1m46.357s across a seven-lap representative run. Completing a total of 16 laps, that famed late-race pace was still very much evident - with the factory Ducati rider posting a 1m46.694s on the 16th tour of that tyre.

Alex Marquez was pleased with his form on Friday, but believes the pecking order in terms of race pace is his elder brother being slightly ahead of him, with Pecco Bagnaia and Maverick Vinales just behind them.

Though the above table shows Alex Marquez sitting higher than Marc Marquez, the slight discrepancy in tyre age pace does back up his assessment. That said, Alex Marquez is generally modest in his outlook of where he sits in the favourite order. However, as he proved at the Spanish GP, being slightly behind Marc Marquez in terms of race pace does not in any way rule you out of the victory hunt.

Best of the rest race at Mugello MotoGP is tight

For such a long lap, Mugello often produces very tight timesheet orders. That was the case at the end of Friday’s running, with 0.645s covering the top 10.

Leading them all was KTM’s Maverick Vinales, who raved about the progress the Austrian manufacturer made at the recent Aragon test. New rear aero seems to have helped improve turning, which is allowing the RC16 to better utilise its massive top speed.

Vinales’ one-lap speed generally has been solid. He was sixth on the grid at both the Qatar and Spanish Grands Prix, and was fifth for the French GP before slipping to 18th at the British GP. At Aragon he was eighth on the grid.

Matching that one-lap speed has also been a reasonably solid run of form in races. He’s yet to quite scale the same heights of his second-place run in Qatar. But after Friday at Mugello, he sits there or thereabouts on long running pace to be considered among the podium contenders.

He did his work in the afternoon session on soft rear rubber, averaging 1m46.418s. That was slower than Pedro Acosta at 1m46.280s on the same tyre - though, crucially, Vinales’ representative sample was slightly longer at eight laps compared to five for Acosta. That, realistically, places Vinales a little ahead of Acosta - but clearly both KTM riders are in good shape right now, even if we’re yet to see what their medium tyre pace can be.

The soft was the race tyre option last year, albeit in considerably cooler conditions to those being experienced currently at Mugello as it bathes in the European heatwave that’s been brutalising thermostats. So that may not be the case in 2025.

Marching forward into battle with the Ducatis appears to be Aprilia and Marco Bezzecchi at this early stage. The Silverstone winner seemed to have found a fix to his stability woes when in time attack trim during the Aragon test, and that was evidenced on Friday at Mugello.

Though he ended the day sixth overall, Bezzecchi was fastest in FP1 and hovered around the top of the timesheet all day. Every move Aprilia makes right now is done so under the shadow of Jorge Martin looking to quit the brand. A strong result on home soil would go a long way to boosting team morale.

Race pace-wise, Bezzecchi looked solid on Friday. He completed 13 total laps on the medium rear, which he started Practice on having put five laps on it in FP1. A four-lap sample yielded an average of 1m46.482s, putting him right with soft-shod Vinales’ pace.

Fabio Quartararo and Yamaha remained fast at Mugello, but how the rest of the weekend plays out for the 2021 world champion - who won the Italian GP that year - really remains to be seen. A crash in Practice caused him to suffer a partially dislocated left shoulder. He completed the session in a brilliant fifth aboard his factory Yamaha.

But the crash meant he didn’t put much in the way of representative long running in, making his place in the above table questionable. After the second session he went to hospital for further checks having looked in an immense amount of discomfort on the bike in the closing stages of Practice.

Pecco Bagnaia continues to go in the right direction

Never in the history of MotoGP has so much attention been given to brake discs. But since Pecco Bagnaia made a breakthrough with his feeling on the GP25 at Aragon by fitting a bigger disc to his bike, it has remained a point of discussion.

And after FP1, a frustrated Bagnaia looked like he’d made a step backwards, having not used the 355mm discs. But he would go on to end the day second overall and was left feeling positive that the gains made at Aragon have actually stuck.

He explained that his FP1 frustrations were down to the bike starting the day nervous and various attempts to fix this not actually working. In the afternoon, Bagnaia was able to do some decent long running on the medium rear.

"This morning I was a bit angry, because the bike was making weird movements," he said. "So I was not understanding it. In the afternoon, I started quite well but also there we needed to work because the rear grip was very low, but in a strange way. So, I wasn't understanding what was happening. Then we just put on a new soft and everything changed and everything was fantastic."

Completing 12 total laps, his average pace was 1m46.510s based on a six-lap representative run. That isn’t enough to fight for victory right now, and even he concedes that team-mate Marc Marquez is the reference right now and Alex Marquez is a little slower than that.

However, it’s pace that puts him right in the podium hunt with Vinales and Bezzecchi currently. Given his form at Mugello, winning the last three on the spin, his ability to extract more from a motorcycle at the Italian venue is an advantage he looks like he will be able to exploit.