Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez is hoping to benefit from the experience he gained in the 2025 MotoGP season during 2026.

Marquez finished second in the riders’ standings last year, his best ever result, after winning three grands prix, taking 12 grand prix podiums, and taking three Sprint wins.

Having scored only five MotoGP podiums before last year, it was a season which put Marquez in unfamiliar situations on a frequent basis.

Now with the experience of those situations, Marquez feels he is in a better position to contend at the front of races throughout the season.

“I feel more prepared because last year the step that we did from 2024 to 2025 was quite huge and many situations I approached last year I didn’t have the experience to approach the situations in a good way,” Marquez explained in the pre-event press conference at the Thai Grand Prix.

“So, to repeat a year like last year will already be a really good year – 2025 was an amazing year for us. But you want always a little bit more. 

“It will depend on our side, it will depend on my hands and on my team’s hands. 

“We need to not change the mentality, go race-by-race and then try to extract the potential in every track. It will be difficult in 22 races to be the fastest one in all the tracks, but for that reason I say that the consistency will be the key.”

Marquez continued, saying that last year he thought too much about the championship in the middle of the year, which led to poor performances in Czechia, Austria, and Hungary.

“I think some situations that I had last year, I didn’t have the experience of the past, to fight for a MotoGP world title, or to fight against Marc [Marquez], or to fight against some rivals that I was watching them [from] quite far in the last seasons, until 2025,” he said.

“So, it was a little bit strange, and I think that in one moment of the season I was just thinking too much on the championship and not to take all the profit from the bike. 

“In that moment is when I started to make those mistakes in Brno, in Red Bull Ring, in Balaton and all that. 

“That I think is the mistakes that I did in the past, I will try to solve it this year but hopefully we will be in the same situation and then I will have the opportunity to take profit of that experience. 

“But to arrive to that point we need to [get] our job done in the first part of the season and try to have the same level as last year.”

Marquez was fastest in the Sepang test and the fastest non-Aprilia in the Buriram test, but he feels that the true MotoGP 2026 pecking order will not be known until after a few races.

“A race weekend will show us where we are exactly – to everybody,” he said.

“I think a test is one thing, and later on in the race weekend you will see the reality [when] everybody is putting 100 per cent on-track. Not just after this race weekend, after three or four races, we will see where we are and for what we can fight this year.”