Did Marc Marquez Go Too Far With Bulega Race of Champions Pass?

The Ducati Race of Champions is the definition of an exhibition race. Ducati gets to show off its best, and this year newest, superbike, as well as its full roster of official riders from across multiple championships.

All of that, and that it has no bearing on any championship, means that the Race of Champions at World Ducati Week is normally a dull and uneventful affair, as riders try primarily to stay out of trouble in a race that literally not one soul will care about 15 minutes after it’s finished.

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And yet, it mattered enough to Marc Marquez to put a last corner lunge on Nicolo Bulega to finish third.

It was a typical Marquez move, one we’ve seen him pull off excellently on countless occasions throughout his MotoGP career — even this year on Francesco Bagnaia at the French Grand Prix. He brakes, then lets off the brake, noses the bike into the apex, and hopes to beat Bulega to it. He more or less does beat Bulega there, but not quite, and certainly not by enough to give the Italian — who is currently Ducati’s leading rider in the World Superbike Championship and therefore, arguably, its best chance of beating Toprak Razgatlioglu and BMW to the 2024 title — time to sit up and avoid.

Marquez’ pass wasn’t totally unreasonable, as we saw Maria Herrera win WorldWCR Race 2 with that exact pass on Sara Sanchez at the inaugural round of the Women’s World Championship back in June. The main reason that Herrera’s move worked and Marquez’ didn’t (as evidenced by the arrival of Bulega arse-first to the gravel trap), is that, currently, Bulega is a better rider than Sanchez. Normally, you’d have to at least have your front wheel overlapping with the rear wheel of the rider in front at the moment you grab the brake in order to execute a last corner pass at Misano, but while Herrera was able to make the difference on Sanchez in braking when she passed in the WorldWCR race, Bulega didn’t leave enough margin when he braked ahead of Marquez for the #93 to make the pass cleanly.

All of the videos of the incident show that Marquez was a metre or two behind Bulega when they braked into the final corner, and therefore that the move wasn’t really on.

For Bulega — who seems to have come out of the crash uninjured, fortunately — perhaps the bigger concern than the incident itself is that Marquez took about 1.5 seconds out of him in two laps in order to be close enough to try to pass him when and where he did.

For Ducati, there is no concern at all, because, sure, Marquez just cleaned out their leading WorldSBK star, but they just signed him to be his usual animalistic self that has so far won six MotoGP titles and eight Grand Prix titles overall, and could at least win one more in red. So, who cares?

And, exactly. Who really cares? It was an exhibition that meant literally nothing to anyone — apart from probably Francesco Bagnaia who, as MotoGP World Champion that spends quite a lot of his time riding around Misano on Pirelli-shod Panigales, risks some degree of his reputation every time he lines up for the ROC — that was made entertaining only for the act of Marquez crashing into someone, which is hardly a novelty for the eight-times champion, about which the tiny portion of the internet dedicated to motorcycle racing has become quite upset.

Fortunately, the British Grand Prix is this weekend, meaning everyone will be able to forget about Marquez’ latest racing sin, as an event which carries actual meaning takes place.

Lead image credit: Ducati/YouTube.