“If you build it, they will come.” That is the theory, borrowed from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, in which an Iowa farmer builds a baseball stadium in a remote field in the hope of attracting large crowds. It is also the theory behind a worryingly large number of race tracks. Stick a circuit in the middle of a place that needs a boost from tourism, and your job is done.
Does it work like that? Sort of. According to a study commissioned by the Motorland Aragon circuit, the facility attracts nearly 200,000 visitors through the year, who generate around €47 million in indirect economic for the region around the circuit, and provide around 480 jobs throughout the year. In a remote but beautiful part of Spain, with little industry outside of farming and rural tourism, that makes a big difference.
Over the 15 years I have been going to the Motorland Aragon circuit, I have noticed the difference. There are more tourists, both during and outside of the Aragon MotoGP weekend. There are more places to stay, more restaurants, more things to do. It is still peaceful and remote, but not so remote that, as happened to my wife and I when we first traveled through the region by motorcycle back in 2004, we tried to leave on a Sunday, but found that the local gas station was shut. (We were lucky: someone who lived across the road called the owner, and they turned up and sold us enough gas to make it back to civilization.)
So that part of Aragon and western Catalonia holds a special place in my heart. It has a stark beauty. It is barren, arid, harsh, but also immense. The geology of the area forces its way up from the earth and thrusts itself into your consciousness. It is a place which makes you feel tiny, swallowed up by the enormity of the landscape. It gives you perspective, something which it is easy to lose in a world which can feel like it is always rushing headlong toward the next thing. Sometimes it is good to touch grass, as they say. And in a place like lower Aragon, finding some grass to touch is part of the experience.
Taking in the view
The Motorland Aragon circuit sits on a hillside overlooking a plain to the south, with the former castle and now five star hotel perched on top of the hill around which the city of Alcañiz is built. That location gives Aragon a bit of everything, some elevation change, some fast corners, some slow corners and an iconic and instantly recognizable vista: the vast wall of red sandstone blocks just before the bus stop chicane between Turns 12 and 15.
The lap starts once you crest the hill just before the finish line. It is a short run from the start into the tight left of Turn 1, and place it is easy to get it wrong. If you don’t brake just right, you are meters too deep into the turn, running off and losing ground. Brake a little too early, and you lose momentum through the next section, the pair of rights which open up through Turn 2 and then Turn 3.
Too many riders don’t make it to Turn 3. Turn 2 is the first right hand corner for nearly half a lap, after a long blast down the exposed back straight with the wind whipping across the right side of your tire. Throw the bike into Turn 2 too eagerly, and you find yourself in the gravel.
A fast left kink of Turn 4 prepares you for the tight left of Turn 5, and a place where if you are smart, you can steal the inside line and push your rival wide. At this point, you are still slowly climbing toward the top of the circuit, underneath the hilltop that sits above the westernmost section of the track.
Mind the drop
Accelerating hard up the gentle incline, you sweep right through Turn 6 before getting hard on the brakes for the next tight right of Turn 7. Pick the bike up and drive hard out of Turn 7, approach the crest where you drop off the edge of the world into the Sacacorchos, Aragon’s tribute to Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew. It is steep, it is tight, and you jig hard right and then hard left again.
Out of Turn 9, you are about to enter Marc Márquez territory. Both literally and figuratively, the endless left turn of Turn 10 being named after the eight-time world champion. You dip down and then start to climb out again, through Turn 11, driving through the corner, the bike still hard over on the left, the tire getting hotter and hotter as you go. All the while you are preparing your next move.
Coming into the bus stop section, you have your best two chances to pass. There’s the entrance of Turn 12, the left hander at the start, but again, it is a place to be treated with respect. Run wide and you have to come back on track, and it is easy to collide with the bike you are racing against.
That happened to Marc Márquez, when he hit Dani Pedrosa’s bike in 2013, severed the wire to the rear wheel speed sensor, confused the bike’s traction control, which then highsided Pedrosa to the moon. It also happened last year, when Alex Márquez ran wide on the exit of Turn 12, and Pecco Bagnaia closed the line through Turn 13 thinking he was past Márquez’ Ducati, but the Gresini bike was still there. That ended in the gravel for both of them, and a painful loss of points for Bagnaia.
Out and down
Getting through the right hander of Turn 13 does not mean you are safe. There’s the other part of the chicane, the right-left of Turns 14 and 15. You can try to enter Turn 14 ahead and then close the door through Turn 15, or you can take the outside at 14 and try to jam it up the inside of Turn 15. Either way, you need to ensure you have enough speed to get on the gas, because there is some speed coming.
Out of Turn 15 and you fire down the hill, clicking into top gear and hitting 354 km/h with the right drive. Speed matters down that back straight, though the fact that is downhill also means that isn’t just about horsepower, but also about speed and finesse.
At the bottom of the hill, there is one more chance to pass, and two ways to do it. The usual way is by outbraking your rivals going into the fast left at Turn 16. But if someone passes you, you can still try to carry speed through 16 and cut back inside for Turn 17, and get the drive to the line. Plenty of positions have been won and lost on that final climb up the hill, and all of them depending on the speed you enter the last corner with.
Odds on favorite
All those left handers and the fact that he has a corner named after him should give you a clue as to who arrives at the Motorland Aragon circuit as red hot favorite. Marc Márquez has won here six times in MotoGP and once more in Moto2. Márquez dominates at counterclockwise tracks, and at a place where left hand corners dominate, so does the eight-time world champion. (Ironically, right-hand corners outnumber left handers at Aragon 10 to 7, but the lefts are where you make the difference.)
It was in Aragon last year that Marc Márquez brought to an end his 1043 days in the winless wilderness, taking pole, sprint and GP victories. It marked the point at which he achieved his objective for the 2024 season: to figure out whether he was still competitive, to start to enjoy racing again, to compete for podiums, and to win races again. At that point, he had already taken his first step on his route to part 2, winning a championship, but signing for the factory Ducati team.
It is genuinely hard to see who could beat Marc Márquez at Aragon. Last year was something of an anomaly, the track being both dusty and slippery after the resurfacing, and after torrential rains in the run up to the MotoGP round at the end of August. With very little grip, Márquez was in his element, with no one able to challenge him.
Can Márquez repeat that this year? The track should be in better shape when the MotoGP circus arrives, with the Alcañiz region expecting to be hot and dry for the entire weekend. Even then, it is hard to bet against the Ducati Lenovo rider. This is a place he wants to win.
Are Ducati lost with the GP25?
If there is any doubt over how Marc Márquez will do, it is down to the current state of the Ducati GP25. Márquez has had a fairly solid grip over the 2025 championship so far, but that may not be an accurate reflection of the state of this year’s version of the Ducati Desmosedici. Many of the changes for the GP25 were abandoned after both Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Márquez rejected the version of the GP25 engine Ducati had brought to the Sepang and Buriram tests.
Ducati went back to what Pecco Bagnaia called the “GP24.9” at the Buriram test. That is basically the GP24 engine internals in a slightly revised engine casing made to fit the improved chassis. (Davide Tardozzi told MotoGP.com’s Jack Appleyard that they GP25 engine won’t fit in the stock GP24 chassis.) The GP25 also has an updated version of their ride-height device, adding weight and complexity to the nose of the Ducati.
Ducati’s engineers have tried to exactly recreate the feeling of the GP24, to give Pecco Bagnaia, especially, exactly the same confidence in the front end that he had on last year’s bike. So far, without success. “I think that they are theoretically similar, but the feeling is quite different,” Bagnaia said of the GP24 and GP25 in Silverstone.
Feeling is everything
It is a problem Ducati are working on, Bagnaia said. “Gigi and the other engineers are trying to think about what is going on, because the bike looks very similar to the past one, but it’s not working in the same way, and maybe they don’t know why. So we are in a situation where we are in limbo, trying to figure out our problems. But it’s difficult to to find the problem.”
It is quite possible that Ducati have tried to exactly replicate the weight distribution and balance of the GP24 on this year’s bike by rearranging parts to compensate for the new chassis and ride-height device. But motorcycles are notoriously complex vehicles, and merely replicating the weight distribution may not be enough. The data may say that the bike is the same, but riders, especially ones as sensitive as Pecco Bagnaia, can feel the difference. And feeling is confidence.
At Silverstone, even Marc Márquez had a problem. He didn’t have confidence in the front end of the bike (though a crash after the first start didn’t help there), and afterward apologized to his team for not being sufficiently clear and precise in his feedback all weekend, a moment revealed on Ducati’s excellent YouTube series.
We can draw two conclusions from this. The first is that Marc Márquez will be laser focused on doing things better at the Motorland Aragon circuit. But the second is that Ducati have not yet fixed the issues they inadvertently introduced when they switched to the GP25. The bike may have more potential than the GP24. But Ducati have yet to be able to extract it.
Am I my brother’s keeper?
So maybe the main challenger to Marc Márquez will come from his brother Alex. The Gresini Ducati rider is turning into his brother’s main rival for the championship, proving far more consistent than Pecco Bagnaia, having finished ahead of the factory Ducati rider on all but one occasion. Alex Márquez leads Bagnaia by 48 points, and even though Aragon marks the one third point of the championship, that is a lot of ground to make up, especially as Bagnaia’s momentum seems to be trending backward, while Alex Márquez is consistently in podium contention.
Aragon is a track where Alex has a very solid record. He got his second MotoGP podium here in his rookie year in 2020, and has podiums in both Moto2 and Moto3. It is one his favorite tracks, and the one closest to his home town of Lleida. It is also a track where he will come out fighting. He will have to beat his brother at one of Marc’s favorite circuits. But he is also maybe the only rider capable of doing that at the Motorland Aragon track.
Franco Morbidelli, the other rider on a GP24, could also cause trouble for the Márquez brothers. The Pertamina VR46 Ducati rider has a victory here in 2020, and was sixth here last year. On a better bike, and in better form, Morbidelli is a rider to keep an eye on.
Close is a relative concept
Last year, it was the KTMs who got closest to the leading Ducatis. Though “closest” is perhaps an exaggeration. Pedro Acosta finished on the podium, with Brad Binder behind him, but the pair were 15 and 16 seconds respectively behind the winner, Marc Márquez, and 10 and 12 seconds behind Jorge Martin, who took second spot. Acosta’s podium was only made possible by the incident between Alex Márquez and Pecco Bagnaia, which ended with them both in the gravel. Otherwise Acosta and Binder would have finished behind four Ducatis, instead of just two.
Aragon isn’t really a track that should suit the KTM RC16. Too many long corners, not enough places where you can brake late into the corner, turn the bike quickly, and try to pick it up and squirt it out of the corner. And long corners and low grip are precisely the conditions that are causing problems with vibration from the rear tire for KTM. So while hope springs eternal, that may be all KTM have.
One interesting measure of KTM’s progress may be how Maverick Viñales does. After a few strong outings at Qatar, Jerez, and Le Mans, the Tech3 KTM rider struggled at Silverstone. Perhaps he can get more out of the KTM RC16 at Aragon, a track where he has finished fourth on four occasions. But his performance should serve as a yardstick for where KTM is at the moment.
Repeat performance?
Perhaps Aprilia could do better. Coming off the back of Marco Bezzecchi’s victory at Silverstone, and Jorge Martin’s tentative return to the fold at a successful Aprilia All Stars event at Misano, the Noale factory is riding high. Long corners and low grip are usually where the Aprilia RS-GP thrives, so the bike should be a good fit for the track.
That was certainly the impression after qualifying on Saturday last year, with three Aprilias entering Q2. But the GP turned out very different indeed: Aprilia riders struggled terribly with a lack of grip. “Horrible. It was a nightmare. Probably the worst race of the last three seasons for everybody in Aprilia,” Aleix Espargaro said after the race. The riders had no grip, graining on the tires, and were going backwards from the start.
Have Aprilia changed the bike sufficiently to deal with this? Will they be able to build on the success of Silverstone, and Marco Bezzecchi’s victory? They arrive at Aragon shorthanded. Martin is still absence, and so Lorenzo Savadori will get to race at the circuit for the first time in his career. Marco Bezzecchi has a modest record in MotoGP here, with a P7 and a P10. Raul Fernandez is having a miserable season and has a poor record at Aragon, with a P16 and a P20. And Ai Ogura still has to be passed fit after surgery on his fractured right tibia. All Aprilia’s stars are crossed at Aragon.
Looking ahead
There will be a lot of interest in how Yamaha does at Aragon. With test rider Augusto Fernandez joining as a wildcard ahead of the test on Monday, there is a lot of focus for Yamaha. After Aragon, Yamaha will head to Barcelona for a private test, where Pramac will focus on the inline four, and where there is a very good chance that the factory riders will get their first ride on Yamaha’s new V4.
But at Aragon, Yamaha will have to make do with the existing bike. Which, given that Fabio Quartararo has just scored three poles in a row at three very different tracks, and should have won the race at Silverstone had he not been thwarted by the plumbing nightmare created by ride-height devices, is not too bad at all. Yamaha have three wins here, in 2014 and 2015 with Jorge Lorenzo, and in 2020 with Franco Morbidelli. Long flowing corners are right up the Yamaha M1’s street.
Fabio Quartararo has a point to prove at Aragon, even though the track has not always been a great place for him. His best result is a fifth place, and he was knocked off shortly after the start in 2022. But he has a fire in his belly from the race he rode and the pace he showed at Silverstone, and will be out for a result.
Jack Miller and Alex Rins have been on the podium at the Motorland Aragon circuit, but both those two were on different bikes at the the time. Perhaps they can find that pace again on the Yamaha, and prove that the progress of the project is real.
Maybe a miracle
Finally, to Honda. A man down, after Luca Marini suffered a punctured lung testing for the Suzuka 8 Hour race after Silverstone, and is still sitting in a hospital in Tokyo. That leaves only Johann Zarco and Joan Mir to uphold Honda’s honor, while Somkiat Chantra is still seeking to get to grips with the MotoGP category.
There is reason to be hopeful for both riders. Hondas have won here a lot in the past, with Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa both having won here, adding to the total of five wins by Marc Márquez. Joan Mir has a solid record here, with three podiums on the Suzuki, and is showing signs of his form moving upward, despite his tendency to keep crashing out of races. And Johann Zarco is coming into his own the LCR Honda, taking second at Silverstone after winning in the wet at Le Mans.
The Hondas struggle with grip, and they struggle with vibration, so that isn’t going to help the cause of either Mir or Zarco. But with a positive upward trend, mostly down to Zarco’s focus and dedication, and his willingness to push to the limits of the Honda RC213V, but not over them, fighting for a top five spot would be good. Again, what counts for Honda is the test on Monday, rather than whatever happens in the race.
The Motorland Aragon may be set in an extraordinary landscape, and may be home to some extraordinary performances, but it has rarely put on spectacular contests. After two fascinating and thrilling races, we will likely be back to a procession. But at least we have the spectacular backdrop to distract us.
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