Ducati “shouldn’t panic” if Marco Bezzeccchi dominates…

Alex Marquez believes it would be premature for him and Ducati “to panic” if Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi dominates this weekend’s MotoGP season opener in Buriram.

Aprilia has emerged as the clear favourite for victory at the Thailand Grand Prix after star rider Bezzecchi smashed the circuit record in Friday practice despite rain drops impacting the grip levels.

Lapping the Buriram track in 1m28.526s on the factory RS-GP, the Italian finished more than four tenths clear of the chasing pack, led by reigning world champion Marc Marquez.

Bezzecchi and Aprilia had ended the 2025 season with back-to-back wins in Portimao and Valencia, but it was unclear how they would have fared if the elder Marquez hadn’t been injured in a crash at the Indonesian Grand Prix.

Speaking following Bezzecchi’s record-breaking lap, Gresini rider Alex Marquez stressed that the Thailand weekend shouldn’t be used as a yardstick to determine the pecking order in 2026.

Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing (Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images)

Asked if Bezzecchi is unreachable this weekend, he said: "It's always possible to beat the riders that are there.

“It will be difficult, of course, and if we will not be able to go faster than him, no panic. We will have 21 races in front of us. So, here [this season] will be so long, no panic, keep calm.

“We need to build our things. Maybe for some reason here Aprilia is better, in some tracks we also have potential, [we] just take the profit.”

Marc Marquez labelled Bezzecchi as the favourite for victory on Sunday, suggesting that his rival is better at exploiting a special tyre casing that Michelin has designed for the Indonesia and Thailand rounds.

“We need to understand well, because already Bezzecchi was super fast in Indonesia and in Mandalika with this casing,” he said.

“We need to understand that here and in Mandalika we are using a different casing. And already there he was super fast, here he's super fast. So it looks like for some reason he's able to be super consistent and super fast in a single lap. Just more speed.

“It's true that at the moment I couldn't follow him, but let's see if tomorrow I can follow him a few laps in the sprint race, because at the moment he's the favourite one.”

Marquez’s factory Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia believes Bezzecchi has as much as four tenths up on his rivals at Buriram.

“We saw that Aprilia with Bezzecchi was really competitive,” he said. “At this moment, he has three or four tenths faster than the other bike with four tenths.”