Ducati came out of MotoGP's opening round in Thailand third in the constructors' standings - the lowest it's placed after the opener since 2014.

That position is deceptive, as lead rider Marc Marquez was going to secure a big haul of points before the wheel rim failure on his Ducati Desmosedici GP26.

But, a year on from a 1-2-3-4 in that year's Thailand Grand Prix, the Ducati was suddenly nobody's pick for the best bike in Buriram.

How worried should Ducati be? Here are the three questions that it should take a look at to get its answer.

Was it all the rear casing?

Several Ducati riders had come into the weekend already aware that this might not be Ducati's weekend, pointing to the reinforced tyre carcass Michelin used in Thailand as the culprit.

A harder-construction tyre was seemingly the cause of Ducati's general underperformance in Mandalika last year, where only Fermin Aldeguer - absent this past weekend through injury - could make it work.

"I hope, I wish - and I expect - that it will be a strange situation [within the season]," said Alex Marquez.

"And I think in Indonesia we also had similar feelings, and was the same casing, or a similar casing. We need to work, for sure, but we need to not go into panic.

"The others improved, for that reason also we are more on the limit and we create more problems. I'm not able to turn the bike in the point that I want, and it's where we create a lot of problems. But also we had the same feeling and problem in Indonesia.

"It's a tyre that, when you go in[to the corner], it creates a lot of rear pushing."

Pecco Bagnaia, however, does not believe there is any fundamental mismatch between the reinforced rear tyre and the Ducati.

"This is not true. This is a very good track for us," he insisted. "We've won always. Austria [with a reinforced rear], we've won always. 

"It's a very good track and also tyre for us. But for some reason this time was more difficult.

"Others have made an improvement and we made a step back. We need to understand why. For me, [it's in] controlling the tyre. Our bike is turning a bit less, and it was very difficult to manage the tyre with the rear throttle.

"Right now we are not anymore the fastest."

Is the Aprilia really this good?

Pedro Acosta leads the championship coming out of Buriram, but he is almost certainly not Ducati's biggest worry.

The presumed Ducati 2027 signing rode at an elevated level all weekend to secure the results that he did. He was pretty close to perfect, and that is not necessarily sustainable in a 24-round season.

But Aprilia's whole fleet seemed to have an edge on Ducati here, and it feels like only Jorge Martin still not being fully race fit prevented this from an even starker display of dominance by the RS-GP bikes.

"We knew that our only cards to play to try to achieve a great podium was to fight the Aprilias early in the race," mused Fabio Di Giannantonio.

"Here were stronger Aprilia, and Acosta [rather than KTM as a whole]," said Marc Marquez.

"I mean, in the end, if you see four Aprilias there in front, it's Aprilia [making the difference]. Plus Bezzecchi, who was flying all weekend, just made a mistake yesterday."

Was Aprilia flattered by the rear tyre construction and the specific grip conditions? This will be the hope within the Ducati ranks, and indeed it's clear that it was not anywhere near this strong in the first pre-season test at Sepang.

But Marquez and Ducati will face an anxious wait to see how this RS-GP looks at the upcoming tracks - because it is also true that in Bezzecchi's hands it already became a very versatile and consistent performer in the closing stages of last year.

Will anyone else rise to the occasion?

An unlucky kerb strike for the physically-limited was the difference between a fine weekend for Ducati and a disaster. Most times, it would've got away from Buriram in a good enough position in the standings.

But Ducati must worry about this over-reliance on a 33-year-old coming off a major injury, even if Marquez is still clearly good enough to 'carry' the project when even half-fit.

Of the rest of its fleet, Fabio Di Giannantonio largely lived up to his side of the mission brief, even if the results don't show it. Di Giannantonio was the second-fastest Ducati rider this weekend, and in true performance, probably closer to Marquez than the others, but was caught up in an incident on Saturday and had a technical issue on Sunday.

But Alex Marquez, Bagnaia and Franco Morbidelli all dropped the ball.

The younger Marquez was the worst scorer - he's actively last in the championship - but Bagnaia was the most alarming performer.

His weekend was messy but it was not messy enough to explain why he was tangibly slower - definitely over one lap but also probably on race pace - than all of his Ducati peers bar stand-in Michele Pirro.

That subtle change in track conditions from the Buriram test to the Buriram race weekend that appeared to have throttled Ducati seemed to hit him much harder than the others, with corner entry an issue again.

"Our bike is a bit more difficult to stop compared to the test. Marc, for me, did as always a fantastic job," he said on Saturday. "And I'm taking a bit more time always to adapt to things."

Welcome self-reflection, as always. But, again, it wasn't just Marc Marquez that Bagnaia didn't match up well against.