– Alex Marquez’s victory at the Jerez Grand Prix raises a central question: Was this the long-awaited breakthrough or just a one-off? Even the Spaniard is cautious in his assessment after his dominant performance.
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After a difficult start to the 2026 season, the Gresini rider achieved an impressive turnaround with the triumph in Jerez. Nevertheless, he makes it clear that only the upcoming races will show whether this success is sustainable. “Le Mans, Montmelo, and Mugello will be important to understand whether this step we took here is real or just a single weekend,” Marquez explains.
The expectations for the younger brother of Marc Márquez were high: After finishing second in the overall standings in 2025 and switching to a current Ducati factory bike, he was considered a title contender. But the start of the season was disappointing.
Alex Marquez: “We suffered a lot”
Amid a general performance slump at Ducati, Marquez did not achieve better than seventh place as his best result in the first three overseas races.
Accordingly, he traveled to Jerez with subdued expectations, despite his strong past at the track, where he had celebrated his first MotoGP win in 2025. But on Sunday, the tide turned: Marquez took the lead already in the second lap and eventually secured victory with a two-second lead.
Photos: MotoGP: Spanish Grand Prix (Jerez) 2026
With this success, he also ended Marco Bezzecchi’s winning streak, who had previously won five races in a row – since Portugal 2025. For Ducati, it was also the first win since the Malaysia Grand Prix in October of the previous year.
A double victory in Jerez would even have been possible, but a sudden rain shower in the sprint race caused Marquez to crash while leading.
His success at the last race weekend is based on several factors. Besides his known strength in Jerez, he benefited from an improved Ducati package and a changed approach: Marquez managed to better compensate for the motorcycle’s weaknesses. Nevertheless, he remains cautious.
“We suffered a lot in the first three races this year, and now we are here and suddenly we are really, really fast and everything is running very smoothly,” he says.
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The real tough test for Ducati is yet to come
Even the test rides on Monday after the race did not provide a clear overall picture. Ducati tried out new aerodynamic packages among other things – with mixed results: “Some things are positive, some negative. It is difficult to draw conclusions about aerodynamics from just one track.”
MotoGP Test 2026: Monday test in Jerez
Especially fast corners would be missing to comprehensively evaluate the new components. Nevertheless, the Gresini rider sees progress and hopes that Ducati and his team can use the data profitably to continue improving.
Also remarkable is Marquez’s mental development. Despite the early problems, he remained calm and trusted the process: “We tried, and I already said in Austin: ‘Okay, we are suffering, but our time will come.'”
The key was not to panic and to continue working systematically. “We started with last year’s setup and then tried other things, and suddenly we were really, really fast again,” says Marquez.
Also noticeable this season is the performance gap within the Ducati structure. While the factory team with Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia has so far fallen short of expectations, the satellite teams have delivered strong results. Initially, Fabio Di Giannantonio from the VR46 team led the Ducati squad before Alex Marquez took command in Jerez.
How resilient this development is will likely be shown in the dense race calendar of May. Three different tracks are coming up: ideal conditions for a status check. Márquez himself remains cautiously optimistic.
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“The next two or three races will also be a very good test for us to see if we can maintain this performance level. Le Mans is a completely different track.”
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