Marc Marquez v Pedro Acosta two-way battle teed up by Hungary MotoGP practice pace

The world was quite a different place the last time MotoGP staged a Hungarian Grand Prix back in 1992. The championship still raced 500cc bikes, Czechoslovakia still existed, the Playstation hadn’t been invented yet and only two riders taking part in this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix at Balaton Park had been born.

It’s been a bit of a winding road for MotoGP to get back to Hungary following Eddie Lawson and Cagiva’s victory at the Hungaroring in July of 1992. There was a failed attempt in 2009 to bring a race to the Balatonring on the western edge of Lake Balaton. After being shelved until 2010, the project crumbled altogether.

Hopes of racing in Hungary were sparked in 2022 in the country at either the Hungaroring or a new venue, before MotoGP finally hit Balaton Park on Friday 22 August.

The 17-turn, 2.53-mile anticlockwise, twisty layout has provided a new challenge for the riders. Across Friday’s two practice sessions, we saw numerous runs through corners and gravel traps, and crashes for Pedro Acosta, Franco Morbidelli and Johann Zarco.

Marc Marquez comes to Hungary off the back of six successive 37-point weekends and was one of a handful with prior track knowledge thanks to a recent Ducati test on street bikes. Unsurprisingly, he led the way at the end of FP1.

But in Practice in the afternoon, it was KTM’s turn to lead, with Pedro Acosta looking much like his former self as he led the way - albeit by 0.006s. Marquez predicted Ducati’s rivals to close up at Balaton Park, but after an hour and 45 minutes of running, it’s clear for now that only Acosta has been able to bridge that gap.

And when considering both outright pace and analysis of the long runs, it seems for the time being that Acosta and Marquez have a clear advantage over the rest of the field.

KTM continues to make Ducati-bothering strides

In the grand scheme of the season, what happens at Balaton Park may not necessarily be indicative of what we’ll see in the rest of the season at more conventional circuits. But KTM has a lot to be encouraged about after Friday’s running at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Having broken its podium drought prior to the summer break at the Czech Grand Prix, it carried that pace into the Austrian Grand Prix to produce a podium in the sprint and a solid fourth in the grand prix with Pedro Acosta.

The updates brought to the bike, chiefly the fairing, had Acosta salivating since he first tested them in Aragon. And clearly, a step has been made. For Acosta, it has allowed him to ride in a more natural way when it comes to time attacks. That was evident on Friday afternoon at Balaton Park, when he topped the day outright with a 1m37.289s.

He did caution that a new fairing isn’t going to suddenly transform KTM’s situation into getting on Ducati’s level. And he was also keen to point out that the stop-and-go circuit in Hungary suits him very well.

“It’s true that maybe the track is matching a lot with my style, with the braking points, my corners and all these things,” he said. “But it’s true that it’s an unusual track for us; even on a MotoGP bike it feels quite small. But, I’m quite happy with the day, we were working quite ok. Sad to finish the day with a crash. But it’s a part of the game.”

Acosta noted that the circuit lends itself to being “more in the hands of the rider”. For someone who has generally been the difference make on his particular motorcycle since stepping into the premier class last year, it’s no wonder he’s been so rapid.

Predicting the play for the rest of the weekend is always hard on a Friday. But KTM had Enea Bastianini up in fifth and Maverick Vinales’ stand-in Pol Espargaro (who tested the RC16 at Balaton Park in June) in eighth. Only Ducati managed to get more bikes directly into Q2.

And looking at the long run pace, Acosta ended the day fastest of all with an average of 1m38.433s from a five-lap representative run in which he put a total of 15 laps on a soft rear.

Bastianini is close on average pace, but he put less mileage on a soft tyre. Pol Espargaro is absent from the above table as he didn’t put together a representative long run in Practice. This further suggests Acosta is extracting more from the RC16.

But when you look at Marc Marquez’s long run pace, there is a clear advantage. Though his pace worked out at 1m38.581s, this was over 10 laps and on a medium rear, with Marquez posting a 1m37.753s on the 17th lap of that tyre.

“It’s one of the most difficult circuits to understand, but one of the easiest circuits in the way to arrive to the limit,” Marquez told TNT Sport. “So, I expect tomorrow it will be again super tight. The focus will be to try the soft rear tyre, to try to understand if it’s able to do the long race distance. Then we need to try something on the set-up because I believe we can improve in some points.”

Where Marquez is looking for improvements is in the Ducati’s ability to turn tight. The KTM seems to do this incredibly well, which Marquez says he anticipated.

Marquez has the pace, but recent qualifying mistakes could be exploited

At present, if Marquez can get out front and lead, then it looks like once more he'll be hard to beat. Not only does he have strong pace, but the narrow track layout means there is pretty much only one line in and out of corners, and the opportunity for overtaking (slim already with modern bikes) is even lower.

“It will be one of the most important Q2s of the season, because of Turn 1, which is one of the most critical in the championship for a start,” he is reported by motorsport.com as saying.

When World Superbike raced at Balaton Park, there was a multi-rider tangle into Turn 2, which resulted in injuries for several competitors. With track position now such a key factor in MotoGP, it will be a surprise if everyone escapes the starts of both the sprints and the grands prix cleanly.

Marquez has hardly been bad on Saturdays this year, but in the last two qualifying sessions he has crashed. At Brno it didn’t prove too costly as he started second, but it did knock him off the front row at the Red Bull Ring.

The Ducati rider went on to win both of those grands prix, but he was pushed hard in Austria as he followed Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi and then came under threat late on from Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer. With all of the other GP25 riders struggling, there has been a sense over the past week that a weekend is coming where Marquez can be knocked off his perch.

That could well be in Hungary, if he can be bested in qualifying.

Heavyweight Q1 runners already facing weekend ruin

With grid position looking so critical this weekend at Balaton Park, three big names are already facing a tough couple of races.

Neither factory Aprilia managed to make it directly into Q2 at the end of Friday practice, with reigning champion Jorge Martin an agonising 0.001s outside of the top 10. Team-mate Marco Bezzecchi, who came from Q1 to qualify on pole in Austria, was just behind him in 12th.

Martin says much of his problems were down to his physical fitness, which is not surprising given his lack of time on the RS-GP this season. Bezzecchi struggled to be competitive in the hard braking zones, which has traditionally been an issue for the Aprilia but wasn’t a barrier for it at the Red Bull Ring.

That will be frustrating for Aprilia, given what happened last week, but equally it knows that there is pace to unlock.

The same doesn’t look like it can be said of Pecco Bagnaia. After the disaster of Austria, tensions have flared within the factory Ducati garage. He walked back his comments about running out of patience, though clearly they still stung a little, as team boss Davide Tardozzi said today: “In the end we have to manage his brain because we have problems on the bike, which means the bike doesn’t suit his riding style at this moment and his confidence. But in the end we have to understand why and we hope Pecco will have the right attitude to let his proceed ahead.”

Ducati looked to be carrying out some radical suspension ideas on Bagnaia’s bike to try to improve his front end feeling. But they didn’t help much, as he repeatedly outbraked himself into Balaton Park’s tight corners.

Speaking afterwards, the double world champion said he knew from the street bike test that he was in for a tough weekend as the circuit is made up of every kind of corner that requires the front end confidence he doesn’t have.

He wasn’t the only GP25 out of the Q2 places, with Fabio Di Giannantonio for VR46 also falling short of the mark. But an end to Bagnaia’s misery doesn’t look in sight…