Why Barcelona MotoGP win was more than just delaying the inevitable for Alex Marquez

After the sprint at the British Grand Prix in late May, Marc Marquez’s championship lead stood at just 19 points. Largely a result of a handful of early mistakes in the opening rounds, Alex Marquez’s form in this period was not to be overlooked.

He trailed Marc Marquez home in both races at the opening two rounds, was second to him again in the COTA sprint and second in the grand prix after his older brother crashed from the lead. Second in the Qatar sprint was followed up by a sixth in the grand prix, before he was second at Jerez in the sprint and finally broke his grand prix victory duck on that Sunday.

Another sprint second followed at Le Mans, before the wet conditions fouled him in the main race. But twice leading up to the chequered flag at the Silverstone sprint had Alex Marquez served as the championship leader - both times when Marc Marquez had dropped the ball.

From the British Grand Prix, when he was a nervous fifth following a crash before the race was restarted, podiums followed in Aragon and Mugello and the Assen sprint. Then he broke his hand in Dutch Grand Prix crash, was eighth in the Sachsenring sprint before getting to second in the grand prix (in a highly attritional race), non-scored at Brno, was second and 10th in Austria and eighth and 14th in Hungary.

Injury, several errors and some needless penalties all conspired to slump Alex Marquez’s results. At the same time, his brother went on a run of seven successive 37-point weekends from Aragon to Hungary.

Barcelona, then, was a chance for a much-needed reset. Having gelled instantly with the GP24 when he tested it first at the circuit last November, from Friday Alex Marquez emerged as the fastest rider in terms of race pace.

Some tweaks to the bike to improve turning spurred him to pole with a new lap record. And he was well on course to win the sprint comfortably when he crashed with four laps to go at Turn 10 having grown overconfident at his pace over Marc Marquez.

Victory was handed over to the factory Ducati rider, who came into Sunday at the Catalan Grand Prix 187 points clear of his younger brother and needing to outscore him by two to create a first match point in the championship chase next weekend at Misano.

At this point of the season, kicking that particular can down the road is just delaying the inevitable. But Alex Marquez’s ride to his second grand prix victory in the premier class on Sunday at Barcelona was more significant than that.

Marc Marquez has been beaten to race wins this year. But at Silverstone, a weak circuit, he was recovering from a crash prior to the red flag that prompted a restart and was cautiously avoiding another mistake. Marco Bezzecchi won that day but not in a head-to-head. At Le Mans, Marquez wasn’t inclined to go all in against Johann Zarco in incredibly wet conditions.

All season, only one rider has gone up against Marc Marquez in a head-to-head and beat him on legitimate pace. That was Alex Marquez in the Silverstone sprint. And it was him again on Sunday at Barcelona, facing up to immense pressure to score the most important win of his career.

How Alex Marquez beat Marc Marquez in a straight fight at Barcelona

The Gresini rider “hurt” emotionally after his sprint exit. He’d just eased off having broken his older brother’s resolve, and this was enough just to change the balance of the bike on the slick surface to cause his fall.

But that couldn’t detract from the pace he had. Even Marc Marquez knew that. Barcelona allows Alex Marquez to exploit his speed in fast right corners, which acts as something of a defence against his older brother because that is where he is weakest.

“He is super strong in my weak points, which is those [right] corners, especially Turn 3, Turn 13, 14, Turn 9,” the championship leader explained. “He was riding in a super good way. Smooth. The bike wasn’t moving. I was behind him, same speed, but fighting against the bike. When this happens it’s something related to your riding style, not the bike. So, he’s riding better in those points. I was trying to compensate on the left corners but it was just three left corners where I was able to recover some gap.”

Off the line, Marc Marquez was able to nab the lead from the polesitter but would be passed at the start of lap four. The pace to begin with wasn’t high as the Marquez brothers tried to control tyre wear.

(Table key: PB = best lap; TL = track limits)

Across the 24-lap race distance, there was nothing to split the Marquez brothers in terms of pace. Alex Marquez was on average 0.079s faster than the factory Ducati chasing him (and was only 0.007s quicker if you remove Marc Marquez’s 1m42s final lap).

Marc Marquez says at one point he rolled off the throttle to stop himself overtaking his brother as he wanted to use him to pull away from Enea Bastianini in third. That was an astute tactic. Once into third, the Tech3 KTM was for a time only around 0.6-0.7s behind the factory Ducati and could have been a problem late on if the lead group stayed close.

At the end of lap 19, Alex Marquez was still only 0.328s clear of his brother, who’d gotten that gap down to as low as 0.262s on lap 16. On lap 20, however, the Gresini rider played his hand. He pulled 0.852s clear and forced Marc Marquez to empty his reserves. The result was an error at Turn 10 which saw him get a little out of shape, have horror flashbacks to his brother’s Saturday crash, and conceded defeat.

“Davide Tardozzi told me, he said to me maybe today is the day [to lose],” Marc Marquez said. “Maybe. You will try. You need to try. But today on the paper… I tried, you see on Turn 10 I went in and then I had a flashback from [Alex] yesterday. I always will try and sometimes you try and you can’t.”

On lap 22, the gap grew to 1.053s and rose to 1.740s come the chequered flag.

“Painful” lessons poised to make Alex Marquez stronger

For the entirety of his grand prix career, Alex Marquez has existed in the shadow of his brother. It’s been an unfair cross he’s had to bear, but one not entirely without merit: in the early phase of a Moto2 career that was shaping up to be nothing but lacklustre, he was arguably afforded more time to prove himself than most would have been.

And there can be little doubt that Marc Marquez didn’t have a hand in Alex Marquez being brought up to MotoGP by Honda to the factory squad in 2020 when Jorge Lorenzo retired.

But it’s what you do with those chances. Since stepping onto a Ducati at Gresini in 2023, Alex Marquez has flourished. And he was convinced pre-season, from his first moments on the GP24, that he now had a machine to show his true potential.

That potential, as Barcelona proved, is enough - on the right day - to beat the best rider of this generation and one who has been embarrassingly dominant in 2025. Another example of that was shown at the Catalan Grand Prix when his sprint win sealed Ducati the constructors’ championship. Of the 541 points scored by the marque so far, Marc Marquez has contributed 454: Alex Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia combine for just 87.

Marc Marquez did admit he could have gone all in in those final laps to try to win, but felt that wasn’t necessary with his championship situation as it is. So, there is that question mark hanging over this result: could Alex Marquez have withstood an assault from an uninhibited Marc Marquez?

Maybe that answer will come later in the season, because that what if doesn’t actually matter in the context of this result. Marc Marquez only surrendered when Alex Marquez forced him to push as much as he dared and almost pushed him into an error. And after what happened in the sprint, it would have been understandable if the Gresini rider cracked when his brother was under 0.3s behind him at one stage.

The fact will forever remain that he didn’t. The crash in the sprint offered him a valuable lesson that ultimately helped him in the grand prix.

“That mistake is still painful,” he said. “But it was the best way to forget it a little bit. Also, that mistake helped me win today because I was braking late in that corner when I did that mistake.”

To call a win lucky glosses over the effort required to have been in that position in the first place. Alex Marquez had to work hard for his Spanish Grand Prix victory, but the absence of his brother because of a crash perhaps made things just a little bit easier for him. He beat him fair and square at Barcelona, though, and Gresini team boss Michele Masini believes this is only going to unlock more from the No.73.

“He can be stronger than before with his mentality,” he said. “Because this helps a lot also for the mentality from here to the end of the season. So, I think today he really deserved this and we have to bring this in the next GPs.”

Marc Marquez now can’t win the championship until the Japanese Grand Prix at the earliest. He wanted that to be the case, because to have the opportunity in Misano would mean a nightmare run of results for his younger brother.

Barcelona, however, was a warning to be careful what you wish for. Alex Marquez is not going to alter the outcome of this world championship. Nobody is. But he can make life hard for his older bother in the final rounds and build himself up into an altogether more potent threat off the back of that for 2026…