How “really smooth” Alex Marquez maximised Ducati potential at Silverstone MotoGP

Alex Marquez was clearly the best Ducati rider at the Silverstone MotoGP, something he puts down to a particular element of his riding style.

Marquez clearly has an affinity with Silverstone. He won his first MotoGP race there in 2023 in the Sprint, and won the 2025 Sprint, too. He might’ve won the grand prix last year, as well, but conditions on the day played against Ducati.

2026’s British Grand Prix certainly wasn’t a weekend that played to Ducati’s advantage, either. Marquez was the best of the Desmosedici riders but missed the podium in both races as Aprilia took all six rostrum spots across the weekend.

But the Gresini Racing rider fared much better than the other Ducati riders. Fabio Di Giannantonio was able to make a bit of a charge towards the end of the grand prix, but Marc Marquez went 9-7 for the weekend, Francesco Bagnaia had a bizarre crash on Sunday and was otherwise shockingly slow, Franco Morbidelli was largely anonymous, and Iker Lecuona was solid as a fill-in but could never have been expected to challenge at the front.

His relative success at Silverstone came despite a mistake he described as “unacceptable” in the grand prix, and because of an aspect of his riding style that has also benefitted him at Barcelona in the past couple of years: a proficiency in fast corners that helps him protect the rear tyre.

“I think at the moment here [Silverstone] is a similar track as Catalunya,” Alex Marquez said after the race at Silverstone.

“So, the fast corners I'm able to save a lot the rear tyre, but especially because we have a lot of corner speed, a lot of apex, and I'm really, really smooth. 

“So, in that moment, the faster is the corner, the more I can manage the rear tyre, I have more feeling. 

“For that reason I think here that flow that I have always on the riding style was paying me a lot and it was having an advantage for me.”