As Motorsport.com reports, Marc Marquez has laid the blame for his puzzling pace deficit at the Austrian Grand Prix entirely on a special rear tyre casing brought by Michelin to the Red Bull Ring.
After dominating with back-to-back double wins at Aragon and Misano, the factory Ducati rider found himself completely on the back foot in Spielberg. Unable to mount a serious challenge for pole position or the sprint victory on Saturday, the reigning champion ultimately salvaged a second-place finish. That result limited the damage, leaving him just three points behind the new championship leader, Jorge Martin, yet the gap in pure speed to Aprilia and KTM's Pedro Acosta was glaring.
The previous lap, I saw Bezzecchi behind plus 0.4s and then I saw Martin plus 0.1 behind. With seven laps to go, it was not necessary or it was not smart to defend very hard.
After losing the initial lead to Acosta on the opening lap, Marquez leaked over two seconds to the young KTM star inside the first half of the race. Martin carved through the field after dropping to eighth on the opening lap, cruising past the Ducati with ease on lap 8. Marquez looked destined for a third-place finish with Marco Bezzecchi closing in, but a late crash by leader Acosta with three laps remaining gifted him second.
Speaking after the flag, Marquez pointed directly to Michelin's stiffer rear carcass, deployed at select tracks like Buriram, Goinaia, Red Bull Ring, and Mandalika to cope with extreme loads. "We are struggling. We struggled a lot in Thailand and we struggle again here. We know that it's a different casing. It’s the same for everybody and the tyres are working well, but we need to understand well how to be better with that casing," he explained.
The struggles were hardly isolated to the factory machine. Marquez stood alone as the sole Ducati representative on the podium, while his brother Alex Marquez crossed the line in fifth for the Borgo Panigale marque, trailing the Aprilias of Bezzecchi and Ai Ogura. Francesco Bagnaia followed in sixth, and further down the order, Fermin Aldeguer and Fabio di Giannantonio were pushed back to eighth and 10th respectively behind the LCR Honda of Johann Zarco. When asked if the rear casing was solely responsible for the widespread Ducati slump, Marquez kept it simple: "For me, yes, because we don't change the bike a lot compared to the [recent] races and I was fast; all the Ducatis were also very fast. Here, since FP1, all Ducatis were struggling more than usual, but that's it."
The afternoon did feature a proper scrap with Martin through the opening sequence of corners. Marquez initially came out on top while Martin dropped to eighth, but Martin struck back on lap 8, forcing the Ducati wide onto the run-off. Knowing the bigger picture, Marquez opted not to risk a desperate defence: "The previous lap, I saw Bezzecchi behind plus 0.4s and then I saw Martin plus 0.1 behind. With seven laps to go, it was not necessary or it was not smart to defend very hard."
