Did Thai GP show MotoGP's new order?

Finally, Aprilia has caught Ducati, dominating last weekend’s season-opening Thai MotoGP round like Ducati has dominated the championship’s last half-decade or so.

It’s no great surprise that it’s taken so long. Aprilia started making motorcycles in the late 1960s, two decades after Ducati. It contested its first grands prix in the 1980s, three decades after Ducati. And while Ducati scored its first premier-class MotoGP podium in 1972, with a 500cc v-twin four-stroke, Aprilia didn’t make the top three until 1999, with a 500cc v-twin two-stroke.

You would think that these two grandees of Italian motorcycle racing would enjoy each other’s success, wouldn’t you? Italian brothers in arms and all that. But it’s not like that. There is some real animosity between the bosses in Bologna and in Noale.

Why? First, it’s the usual hometown hero, derby thing, like Arsenal versus Tottenham, Manchester United versus Man City, AC Milan versus Inter Milan and Juventus versus Turin.

It’s the same in MotoGP. You’d think that riders from the same country would get on, wouldn’t you? Again, it’s quite often the opposite, because they’re treading on each other’s feet, fighting each other in the national media and competing for the affections of the home fans. Think, Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz, Mick Doohan and Wayne Gardner, Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa and many more.

There are also more concrete reasons for the enmity between Bologna and Noale, though specifically, it’s more about carbon-fibre than concrete.

During the 2019 Qatar Grand Prix, Aprilia (along with Honda, Suzuki and KTM) protested against Ducati’s new swingarm aero. They complained that the primary purpose of the wing below the swingarm was to provide downforce. Ducati insisted the wing’s main job was to cool the rear tyre. The protest was thrown out.

Last winter, MotoGP came close to banning Aprilia’s so-called leg wings. No manufacturer was named in this case, but those in the know tell me that Ducati was the prime mover. The RS-GP’s leg wings – which increase rear downforce during braking – were copied last year by Honda and are now used by KTM as well.

All this adds an extra buzz to the duel for MotoGP supremacy between Bologna and Noale, which has been bubbling under for the last year or two.

First blood at Buriram went to Aprilia. Never before has it had four bikes in the top five – Marco Bezzecchi in first, Raul Fernandez third, Jorge Martin fourth and Ai Ogura fifth. And not since the 2021 British GP has Ducati not had a single rider on the podium.

But this doesn’t signal a shift in MotoGP’s world order, because Aprilia also won three of the last four races of 2025 – Valencia, Portimao and Phillip Island – so the RS-GP was already as good if not better than Ducati’s Desmosedici six months ago. And it was already a better bike – on its day – a year or so ago. What these recent results tell us it that Aprilia is getting better and better at extracting the bike’s full performance every weekend, not just now and again.

“I don’t think Ducati are struggling,” said Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola at Buriram. “I think Aprilia did something special here.”

How did Aprilia get here?

The crucial changes came in 2019, when Aprilia developed its first 90-degree V4 MotoGP bike (same configuration as the Ducati) and hired Ferrari Formula 1 staffer Massimo Rivola. These were the technical and human changes that began shifting the RS-GP from mid-pack hopeful to championship contender.

The current-configuration RS-GP scored its first podium in 2021 and Aprilia’s first MotoGP victory the following year. Since then, progress has been step by step, with incremental improvements throughout, especially in electronics strategies and most obviously in aerodynamics, where the Noale aero department has seized the initiative from Ducati.

To name but two, Aprilia aero innovations: In 2022 it created the first ground-effect downforce fairing and this year it has another F1-inspired aero feature, which allows riders to choose between increased cooling and decreased drag by using their forearms to block fairing ducts.

The RS-GP’s biggest strong points have always been turning and corner speed. These seem to be part of Aprilia’s DNA, learned during its time as 250cc dominators with the RS250 two-stroke. I once asked an Aprilia engineer how it can consistently create so much corner speed. He wouldn’t talk details but told me the secret is something to do with the way they engineer steering heads.

At Buriram, Sunday winner Marco Bezzecchi was visibly faster through the corners and, even more importantly, he could summon all that speed without using too much racetrack, because the bike turns so well. This is a huge advantage, because if you can make the motorcycle turn fast at the apex, you can get it pointed out of the corner sooner, which means you can lift the bike onto the fatter part of the rear tyre and use more throttle sooner.

This is the virtuous circle that all MotoGP engineers spend their lives chasing.

The big difference now is that Aprilia has got the rest of the RS-GP sorted as well, without compromising its biggest strengths.

On the other hand, Ducati’s Desmosedici has never had great turning or corner speed. Those factors were always the bike’s weaknesses, until Gigi Dall’Igna managed to minimise them while also maximising the bike’s strongest points – entry and exit.

Will Ducati be back, or will it have to get used to being beaten by its Noale nemesis?

Of course it will be. Buriram was particularly complicated for it because it’s one of three MotoGP circuits where Michelin specifies its stiff rear tyre, designed to withstand the massive head buildup experienced during acceleration at Buriram, Red Bull Ring and Mandalika.

This tyre both hurts Ducati and helps Aprilia. Its stiffer casing reduces squish and therefore footprint, so there’s less rear grip in entry and exit. It has less effect on edge grip.

“[With this tyre] we cannot brake late and hard, which is normally our strong point, then we can’t use our drive in acceleration,” Ducati’s Marc Márquez told me at Mandalika last October. “You need to flow a lot, which is the weak point of our bike.”

And will Márquez be back? Of course, he will. The 33-year-old is still in a lot of trouble with the right shoulder he damaged when he got taken out at Mandalika last year. That shoulder has had numerous surgeries over the years, so each intervention takes longer to heal than the last. At the end of 2018, he had the shoulder completely rebuilt, following multiple injuries and dislocations. The muscles around the joint were so weakened that when Márquez was knocked out for surgery, his humerus popped out of its socket the moment he lost consciousness.

At Buriram, it was obvious that he was riding conservatively to avoid playing with the limit, because he doesn’t yet have the strength to save a slide. And yet he nearly won the sprint and was hopeful of third or fourth place on Sunday, until he ran wide (to avoid having to save a slide), ran over the kerb and buckled his rear wheel rim. Márquez says it won’t be until the Spanish GP at the end of April that he will have a real idea of his strength.

Meanwhile, Bezzecchi will make hay while the sun shines. Some people are surprised by the 27-year-old’s speed, but he’s always had something special inside. VR46 signed Bezzecchi when he won the 2015 Italian Moto3 title in 2015. World-class victories followed in Moto3 and Moto2, then an impressive though under-the-radar rookie MotoGP season in 2022 – fifth at Mugello, fourth at Phillip Island – and his first wins the following year.

He’s a delight to watch on the RS-GP – glass smooth, riding the bike exactly the way it wants to be ridden. And although he may come across as a bit of a Jack the Lad, he’s highly intelligent and knows how to work with his engineers in the garage.

This year, Bezzecchi is a championship challenger for the first time and that brings new stresses and pressures. Three crashes on Saturday at Buriram were not the stuff of a title contender – his sprint fall cost him what should’ve been an easy nine points – but his inch-perfect Sunday suggests he learned from those mistakes and didn’t let them scare him into rolling the throttle.

“I didn’t have to give Marco any shit [for the sprint crash] because he gave himself enough shit,” said Rivola.

If there is aggro between Aprilia and Ducati, there seems to be less than there was between Bezzecchi and Márquez, who right now stand out as the main men for the riders’ title.

A few years ago, when they collided at Valencia 2023, Bezzecchi made no secret of the fact that he really didn’t like Márquez.

“It was very, very dirty, but they don’t even show the replay,” said Bezzecchi, who fell, while Márquez didn’t. “Nobody does anything to him, because it’s Márquez and he’s the dirtiest rider.”