Marc Marquez knew where he had an advantage, but equally – and more crucially – where he didn’t.
With a steady right hand and a deft touch, MotoGP’s star Spaniard drilled down on his weak point and turned it into a strength. The result was another victory at a track where wins have historically been in short supply.
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Combine that with a stroke of unwelcome family fortune, and the Ducati rider left Assen on Sunday night in his strongest world championship position yet.
Winless at the Dutch Grand Prix since 2018 at the historic old-school circuit that has never been one of his favourites, Marquez qualified an equal season-worst fourth, and needed all of his famed early-race aggression to barge his way to the front early in Saturday’s sprint race, and Sunday’s Grand Prix proper.
From there, the primary opponents were different – fellow Ducati rider Alex Marquez in the sprint, Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi in the Grand Prix – but the task was the same.
From turns 10 to 14 of the revered, fast flowing layout of Assen, Marquez was out of his comfort zone.
Rapid, right-handed corners have never really been his sweet spot, and even more so since 2020 and the first of four right-arm surgeries that derailed the middle part of his career. But what the body can no longer do as well as it once did, the mind can make up the shortfall.
On Saturday, Marquez beat his brother – clearly faster in the third sector of the lap – by 0.351secs over 13 laps to take his ninth sprint victory in 10 starts this season. Fast-forward 24 hours, and once Bezzecchi had pushed past Marquez’s teammate Francesco Bagnaia for second with 18 laps to go, he quickly latched himself onto Marquez’s tail and waited for a mistake.
It never came.
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“I was really on the limit all the race, I never managed the tyre, I never managed myself,” Bezzecchi said.
“I was risking all the corners like a bastard. [The final chicane] was the only place I could try to overtake everyone, I pass Alex [Marquez] there, I pass ‘Pecco’ [Bagnaia] there, but I have to say that Marc was almost impossible even to try.
“I was faster in sector three and always catching, but it was at the wrong time, and Marc was so quick.”
Just quick enough to win – this time by 0.635secs – and take a third sprint-Grand Prix double in succession after crushing the rest at one of his favourite circuits in Aragon, then stopping Bagnaia’s three-year runs of dominance at Mugello in Italy and then at Assen in seven days.
It’s a run that adds more weight to the theory that 2025-spec Marquez – older, wiser, more cognisant of the finer details – may be the most formidable version yet.
Sunday’s victory marked the first time he’d won three Grands Prix on the bounce since 2019, when he was Marc Mk I.
It was a win that saw him equal Italian legend Giacomo Agostini on 68 500cc/MotoGP victories to sit second all-time behind Valentino Rossi’s all-time record of 89. And it was another win at a track where success has previously been elusive, the most tell-tale indicator yet that, even at 32 and with a glittering CV based on raw speed, a supernatural ability to save crashes with his catlike reflexes and ferocity in battle, that he’s adding more tools to the toolbox.
“Always I focus to try to improve my weak points,” he said.
“I knew that Bezzecchi would be faster on turn 11 and 12, but if I’m on the correct line, they will not overtake me. I was not the fastest out there – at least this is what I feel – but I managed well the race.
“The most important victories of the year were Qatar, Mugello and here because they were race tracks where I didn’t expect those victories, and I was fast.
“It looks like this year we are winning in the difficult circuits and we are doing mistakes in the favourite circuits, like Austin and Jerez. It’s like this, and now we start to have a very good advantage in the championship.”
MARQUEZ PAIN LEADS TO MARQUEZ GAIN
That “very good” advantage swelled to a whopping 68 points after Assen as Marc Marquez took his third 37-point haul in the past three rounds, but that gain came with an unpalatable aftertaste as it was at the expense of younger brother Alex, who is set for surgery in the next 24 hours after breaking a finger on his left hand after an ugly crash with KTM’s Pedro Acosta.
The two Spaniards were in the thick of a five-rider leading group on lap six when Marquez’s right brake lever clipped Acosta’s body coming out of turn five, Marquez’s Ducati abruptly falling onto its right side and hurling its rider face-first onto the tarmac before coming to a halt in the trackside grass.
It was the younger Marquez’s brother’s second non-finish of the season – he fell in the soaking wet conditions at Le Mans for the French Grand Prix in round six in May – but clearly the most painful, with Gresini Ducati team manager Michele Masini confirming Marquez will undergo surgery in Madrid in a desperate bid to be back for the next round at the Sachsenring in Germany in a fortnight’s time.
Alex Marquez’s unlikely season – he’d never finished better than eighth overall in five MotoGP campaigns before this year, where he’s won a Grand Prix for the first time in Spain, a sprint in Silverstone and has finished second 14 times in 20 starts – had been based on unerring consistency, and Marc Marquez’s suddenly bulbous championship advantage left him unsure of how to feel, especially after he’d escaped major injury from two Friday practice shunts of his own at Assen.
“I’m happy, but not 100 per cent because my father told me Alex [Marquez] injured one finger and I think will take surgery,” Marc Marquez said.
“He’s my main opponent at the moment and I want him on the racetrack, especially as he is my brother and I wish the best for him. I will try to help him come back on the same level as he was [before]. I will try to keep him in a high mental side, with ambition and motivation, because I believe he is doing an incredible season and he is riding in an incredible way.
“As we see on Friday, as we see today, this is racing, this is MotoGP and injuries are part of the game. The second part of the season will have many races in a row, back-to-backs, and we need to take care about everything.”
The Marquez/Acosta incident was investigated by race stewards, who took no further action. Acosta, who finished an equal season-best fourth, was taken to hospital immediately after the race after suffering an allergic reaction from an insect sting sustained during the Grand Prix, but was later released after receiving antihistamine shots at the circuit’s medical centre.
MILLER ‘STUCK’ AS YAMAHA’S HOPES FADE
Jack Miller finished a frustrated 14th at Assen on Sunday, the Australian spending the majority of his race stuck behind KTM rider Enea Bastianini on the fringes of the top 10 before fading late on a difficult day for Yamaha.
The Australian, who qualified and finished 14th on Saturday after a bizarre sprint race where the airbag in his race suit inadvertently deployed on the second lap, started and ended in the same place 24 hours later after falling behind Bastianini on lap five, and struggling to make inroads before being overtaken by stablemates Fabio Quartararo (10th) and Alex Rins (13th) in the final eight laps.
Miller, who finished 25.065secs behind race-winner Marquez to improve to 18th place in the standings on 33 points, said the speed out of the corners of Bastianini’s KTM made it impossible for all three Yamahas to pass, Bastianini finishing ahead of the trio in ninth place.
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“Even when Fabio [Quartararo] came past me … I’d sat there behind Enea for f**king 18 laps and I thought ‘we’ll see what Fabio can do now’,” Miller said.
“He came with better speed, but you get stuck riding at the same pace as the guys around you. To make a pass here, unless there’s a mistake or a little bit of contact in front of you, honestly it’s very difficult.
“The track is quite one-line and unless there’s some mistakes, everybody is on the braking points on the limit, so it makes life really tough. You get stuck following the leader.
“You try to make a move … unfortunately for us [Yamaha], even a block-pass is out the window because we can’t just park the bike in the corner and just go, we need to keep the momentum going.”
Quartararo sunk quickly after starting from his fourth pole of the season, which added to Yamaha’s difficult day at a track Miller felt had the Japanese factory on its back foot.
The tight and twisty Sachsenring circuit next time out should be better suited to the YZR-M1, Miller feels.
“Sachsenring, for turning it can be good,” he said.
“Power is not our issue, it’s usable power that’s the issue. We know we need to keep the bike in the grip window which is tough, but Sachsenring has plenty of long corners, and this bike turns quite well.”
Miller’s Pramac Yamaha teammate Miguel Oliveira was an early retiree, the Portuguese rider clashing with Aprilia’s Ai Ogura on the opening lap and pulling out after lap eight with a broken handlebar.
APRILIA PREPARED FOR COURT BATTLE AS MARTIN SAGA CONTINUES
Aprilia has indicated it would be prepared to take Jorge Martin to court as the dispute between the reigning world champion and his team took another turn at Assen over the weekend, with Martin’s manager Albert Valera describing his client as “completely open and available” as the Spaniard looks to move to Honda for 2026.
Martin, who won last year’s title for Pramac Ducati before leaving for Aprilia, has competed in just one round this season after a pair of pre-season accidents delayed his debut until round four in Qatar, where he fell and was struck by Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, suffering 11 fractured ribs and a collapsed lung.
Martin has yet to race since, and informed Aprilia at the French Grand Prix in May of his intention to use a release clause to void the second year of his contract in 2026, with the factory Honda seat currently occupied by Italian Luca Marini his preferred destination.
Reporting from Spanish website es.motorsport.com in May said Martin’s contract with Aprilia grants him full freedom to accept offers from other teams if he was “not among the title contenders” after Le Mans; because of his injuries, Martin is 26th and last in this year’s rider standings, yet to score a single point.
Speaking to motogp.com in Assen, Valera reiterated his client’s desire to leave at the end of the 2025 season.
“What we can say is that Jorge is free of contract for next year, for ’26,” Valera said.
“It’s pretty clear for us. He has executed the clause that he has in the contract and we are just following the contract. He’s completely open, available and we will see what will happen in the future. He had a clause in the contract, he had the right to execute that clause and he did so.
“We deeply believe that he is free. And from the moment that we obtained Jorge’s freedom, we are able to talk to other manufacturers. If you ask me about Honda, it’s an option as well for next year.”
Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola, speaking in the Assen paddock on Sunday, said one of the options for the company is to take Martin to court unless he either agrees to stay with Aprilia, or Aprilia and Honda can come to an agreement over his release.
“For us, the rider is under contract with us,” Rivola said.
“Obviously the priority is for the rider to change his mind, because we took him to fight for the world championship. We think we would have been in that position this year, and we would like to be in it next year.
“We will do everything in our hands to protect the company, now nothing really has changed. There are only two options; either we find an agreement, we sit down and we speak seriously, or we go to the courts. We are ready to do both, and we will do everything we need to do to protect the company.”
Martin is expected to return to the track in a private test at Misano next week should he get the medical all-clear this week, with the Czech Republic Grand Prix (July 18-20) his most likely return date.
“It’s not a comfortable situation,“ Rivola said.
“We got [Martin] for a good reason, and I think he chose us for performance reasons. We have shown that the performance is still there.”