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‘Have to be selfish’: Marquez defends skipping karting chaos, riders ‘stupid’ on tyres, Aussie irritated – MotoGP Talking Points
MotoGP can keep its dog and pony show. Marc Marquez would prefer an eighth premier-class world title. Over 24 laps on Sunday, Marquez did – for the fifth time this season on Sunday at the Japanese Grand Prix held under grey skies that threatened but weren’t tempted to deposit rain on Honda’s home track nestled in the Motegi mountains – what Marquez does.
Sum up a situation perfectly, wait for the right time to uncoil, and strike like a cobra. After the Sunday morning warm-up – extended to 20 minutes from the usual 10 for tyre-trying reasons, more of which later – the series organised a go-kart race for the entire grid as a promotional event as a bit of fun for the fans, Mario Kart style.
The usual classroom clowns – Jack Miller driving completely off-track, brandishing a banana, Pramac Yamaha teammate Toprak Razgatlioglu driving backwards, Diogo Moreira sending an on-track obstacle skywards – were in their element. Marquez? He was on the physio table at the back of the Ducati garage, getting treatment on his right shoulder. A body double wearing a Marquez jacket and the reigning world champion’s helmet ‘competed’ in the race, with series organisers clearly unimpressed once they realised what had happened.
“At this moment you have to be selfish and perform at your maximum when it matters, which is in the races,” Marquez said after his sixth Grand Prix podium of the year – all of them wins – saw him draw to within two points of Aprilia’s Jorge Martin for the championship lead. “I understand the show, but we are fighting for the championship, we’re not here to mess around, go around in kart races … there’s a bit of a line.
“After the warm-up, I needed ice and someone came out and said it would be cool to send a doppelganger, so we did it … they told me off. ” Putting himself above the sport? Asking for – demanding – special treatment? Fair or not, if there’s anyone in MotoGP who gets to pick and choose what he does and when, it’s the seven-time world champion.
He’s not averse to fun; anyone who sees his victory celebrations that have been going in the premier class for 13 years has plenty of evidence to see that. But given the battering his body has taken over the years – part of the reason he’s still trailing compatriot Martin in the title chase is that he missed two Grands Prix this year for yet another surgery, this time to remove a broken screw in his shoulder from a previous one – and you can argue the end justifies the means, particularly in what is fast-becoming one of the tightest title fights in the history of the series.
Martin couldn’t have done much more on Sunday to keep Marquez at bay; from pole, the Aprilia rider held the line into the first corner, and resisted for 11 laps before Marquez went for it down the inside at turn nine in a move the younger Spaniard anticipated was coming, but couldn’t resist. Marquez gave him no other chances, and Martin had to be content with his ninth Grand Prix podium of an incredibly consistent season where he’s won just one Grand Prix – at Le Mans in May, 10 rounds ago – but is always there or thereabouts.
“I knew it wasn’t Marc,” Martin said of the ‘Marquez’ who came to the grid for the kart race, at one stage attempting to lift the ring-in rider’s visor to confirm his suspicions. “I did some small mistakes but I thought I was able to win, but Marc was unbeatable today. It will be really difficult to beat him, but it’s a privilege to be fighting with Marc at this stage in the championship and still be in the lead.
” Martin’s podium for second was Aprilia’s first rostrum visit at a venue that had been a bogey track in the past, once again underlining that the Italian manufacturer’s RS-GP machine has been the season’s standout. The Spaniard’s teammate Marco Bezzecchi was third in the race and stayed third in the championship. Aprilia stablemates Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura both finished in the top six.
Factory Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia – winner of the past two Grands Prix at Motegi – was a distant eighth, 20.3secs from victory … and that was one of “Pecco’s” better showings of late. Alex Marquez crashed and took KTM’s Pedro Acosta and Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio out in Saturday’s sprint, served a double long-lap penalty for the indiscretion on Sunday, and then crashed out again.
Di Giannantonio, his ribs feeling like “someone had stuck a knife in them”, he lamented later, grimaced his way to 18th place. Should Marquez win an eighth premier-class title after being 102 points behind the leader seven rounds into 2026, it would represent a record for the biggest deficit overcome to claim the crown. If he manages it?
Then the fun and games can start. But for now, there’s only one he’s keen to win.
“The target was clear in the race – try to lead as soon as possible and when I was leading, try to control the race pace as I wanted,” he said. “I’m feeling better and better, since Aragon the feeling was great. We just had a small problem in Austria, but here, we were there again. ” Martin was stalked by Marquez for the first 11 laps, but could do nothing when his fellow Spaniard sailed past.
Tyres became a major talking point over the Motegi weekend, with 2021 world champion Fabio Quartataro derisively calling himself and his peers “stupid” for ignoring what turned out to be the most suitable of Michelin’s three compounds of rear tyre to tackle a resurfaced Motegi layout that made previous years of experience irrelevant. The 4.8km track had been completely resurfaced since the series last visited Japan, and quality of the surface – “like a pool table,” Bezzecchi marvelled on Saturday – threw a curveball that caused a rethink of the Sunday schedule.
Of the 22 riders in the 12-lap Saturday sprint, only two – Bezzecchi and Australia’s Jack Miller – opted for the medium-compound Michelin rubber, the rest using the soft for peak performance. Problem was, the track was so smooth and grippy that it barely wore the tyres at all, allowing for so much performance – Martin’s pole time of 1min 42.371secs was more than half a second faster than Bagnaia’s pole lap 12 months earlier – that the tyres blistered from the inside because of the temperatures raised by the super-fast track.
After Martin and Bagnaia suffered severe tyre problems in the sprint – Bagnaia retired with a lap to go, his rear rubber destroyed – Michelin withdrew the soft tyre from being able to be used on Sunday; as no riders had tried the hard rear tyre all weekend before the sprint, organisers doubled the duration of the Sunday morning warm-up to give the riders a feel for a tyre they’d not turned a lap on.
While Michelin stopped short of mandating the use of the hard on safety grounds, the French company strongly recommended it be used for the 24-lap distance; all 22 riders ran identical medium front-hard rear combinations, and the performance of the more durable tyre and the grippy track meant this year’s race time of 41 minutes and 31 seconds was a whopping 37 seconds faster than last year, easily more than one second per lap.
“To be honest, I think we were a bit stupid to not consider this tyre ,” Quartararo said after finishing 12th and 30.867secs behind Marquez, the Frenchman finishing the race in a time that would have comfortably won last year’s Japanese Grand Prix on a Yamaha that’s the grid’s slowest bike in 2026. Quartararo was one of a number of riders confused - and impressed - by the hard tyre in a red-hot Motegi race.
Honda’s Luck Marini, who came home 10th as the Japanese brand’s best finisher at the circuit it owns, said the harder tyre transformed his bike.
“They produced a fantastic tyre for this track,” the Italian, who will partner Australia’s Senna Agius at Tech3 KTM next year, said. “I was complaining all weekend of grip and this morning I put this hard rear, the grip was unbelievable. All the problems on the bike were fixed, everything was working well. ”“It was a big surprise, but a nice surprise,” he said.
“It was a fault of us, of the riders, to not try it before. But honestly, when I saw the allocation, I said ‘it will be a backup’ … you try to not use a backup tyre. But it’s always important to test everything before arriving at the race, so it was our fault to not have done it.
”Jack Miller’s recent barren run continued on Sunday at Motegi, the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix winner finishing second-last in 19th after remounting from a crash with six laps remaining. Miller lost 25 seconds to the pack when he fell at turn 10, and said spiking tyre pressure while racing in the dirty air of the pack in front from his grid position of 20th was his biggest issue as he failed to score points for the third consecutive Grand Prix.
“I started alright, but immediately the tyre pressure went through the roof, and I was locking like mad,” he said. Miller was left frustrated after a late fall saw him finish 19th and second-last after 24 laps “I went straight and let Alex past, went straight and let Toprak past, and was fighting with Chantra to keep him behind, but it was like he passed me on the back straight with the indicator on.
“We start so safe on pressures that it’s ridiculous, we’re starting 20th on the grid and we’re getting the heat … we need to get better at this. “Yesterday I had a f**king massive hole in my knee from saving it, and today I had moment after moment and sure enough, I landed on my side.
” Miller’s compatriot – and 2027 MotoGP graduate – Senna Agius finished 13th from 10th on the grid in the Moto2 race, the Kalex rider snapping a run of two straight non-finishes while scoring points at Motegi for the first time in four visits to fall to sixth in the championship. Miller’s MotoGP replacement at Pramac Yamaha for next year, Spaniard Izan Guevara, led from start to finish, with Agius finishing 13.509secs adrift.
In Moto3, Australia’s Joel Kelso recovered to 17th place after starting from a season-worst 23rd following a yellow flag infringement in practice, the Honda rider finishing 22.591secs behind winner David Almansa to retain 14th place in the standings.
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