Márquez and Martin were precision personified at Motegi. Márquez was as canny as ever, taking the lead before half-distance and then controlling the pace
MotoGP
Two points separate Jorge Martin and Marc Márquez in the 2026 MotoGP title hunt, with 222 points still up for grabs. Anything could happen.
And it usually does to Márquez at Mandalika, the venue for this weekend’s Indonesian Grand Prix, where the reigning champion hasn’t finished a single Sunday race since the island circuit hosted its first GP in 2022.
That first year was the worst.
Márquez suffered a horrific highside during morning warm-up, which put him out of the race. On the long flight home, he started seeing double again, an ailment that has affected him on and off since a big shunt back in 2011.
“When I got home with my father, we went to see the doctor. When we left the doctor, I said to my father, ‘Okay, now I give up’,” Márquez recalls.
Márquez has considered quitting racing often enough since his 2020 Jerez accident but this is the only time he’s actually made the decision to quit. Of course, he changed his mind two weeks later, once the diplopia had subsided, and flew to Austin for the US GP, where he suffered blinding headaches throughout, icing his head whenever he wasn’t on the bike. Of course he told no one except his inner circle.
At the 2023 Indonesian GP, Márquez crashed out of eighth place after a few laps; the following year his engine blew and last year he got taken out on the first lap by Marco Bezzecchi.
Márquez always focuses on the positives, so no doubt already he’s convinced himself that he’s due a change of luck this weekend.
And yet it won’t be that simple.
Michelin’s Mandalika tyre allocation only includes the heat-resistant rear slick, which usually works better with Martin’s Aprilia than with Márquez’s Ducati.
The sticker on Márquez’s screen marks chief engineer Gigi Dall’Igna’s 100th victory with Ducati, an astonishing achievement in 10 years
Ducati Corse
Sure, Márquez won Motegi with a heat-resistant slick, but that’s because the new asphalt was so grippy that it masked the tyre’s deficiencies.
By the way, the Motegi tyre drama – triggered by several soft rear slicks delaminating during the sprint – need never have happened.
The only reason there was a panic about Sunday tyre choice – the medium or the hard – was because no one had bothered trying the hard during practice. If they had, there wouldn’t have been any worries. So the drama was the fault of the riders and teams, not Michelin’s.
Most engineers don’t think Márquez will be able to repeat his Motegi success at Mandalika, which is much more slippery than Motegi and a lot hotter, track temperatures nudging 60 degrees, twice as hot as Motegi.
But, hang on… Ducati has won the last three races at Mandalika. Yes, but only because in 2023 and 2024 it had enough of an advantage over its rivals to cancel out the tyre handicap and because last year’s race-favourite Bezzecchi didn’t last the first lap, allowing Gresini Ducati’s Fermin Aldeguer to win. Bezzecchi had put his Aprilia on pole by four-tenths and had been more than a second faster than anyone on Saturday morning.
Therefore Márquez will spend much of this week hunched over a computer screen with crew chief Marco Rigamonti, examining Aldeguer’s data from last October. Aldeguer suffers less with the heat-resistant tyre than other Ducati riders, because he uses more corner speed than they do.
The heat-resistant casing makes most of the tyre stiffer than the regular casing, so the rubber doesn’t squish so much and therefore doesn’t grip the track as well. However, the edge of the tyre isn’t really affected by the stiff casing, which is why it works better for Aldeguer, as well as for the Aprilia, which is a corner-speed bike, while the Ducati is a stop-and-go bike, relying on the tyre’s shoulder during braking and acceleration to make the lap time.
Martin – full gas over the kerbs – is building consistency to go with his speed
MotoGP
What Márquez wants to learn from Aldeguer’s data is how to ride more like his young countryman, at least this weekend. So most of all he will be looking at braking data, trying to match brake pressure and lean angle in a way that allows him to carry more speed into and through the corners.
Like all the true greats, Márquez can adapt his riding to all kinds of different situations. If he can make that magic at Mandalika, he may even challenge for victory. Otherwise, he will try to minimise the damage.
It’s worth pointing out that the 33-year-old’s 79th MotoGP victory takes him to within 10 races of equalling Valentino Rossi’s record 89 wins. And if he takes this year’s title he will equal Giacomo Agostini’s record of eight premier-class titles.
Whether Márquez attains that second achievement could depend on what happens this weekend.
In theory, Aprilia will dominate Mandalika. The RS-GP loves the seaside venue’s flowing layout and it’s not impossible that Aprilia could lock out the podium in both races, which might cost Márquez twenty points or more. And with Martin finally combining speed and consistency – he’s scored double podiums at the last two GPs – that loss won’t be easy to make up at the last five rounds.
Martin may not have had the speed to beat Márquez in Japan, but he was super-fast and very nearly as precise as the race winner. The 28-year-old is finally fully at one with the RS-GP, comfortably out-performing team-mate Bezzecchi at recent races. I’ve always thought the Aprilia suits him better than the Ducati, no matter how long it’s taken him to get there.
Martin also has the better bike and is physically stronger. His arm-pump issues haven’t bothered him since Misano – thanks to a couple of hours of treatment each day – so he may make it to the end of the season without them reoccurring. And remember he was running away with the Misano race when arm pump intervened.
Martin, Márquez and Bezzecchi – MotoGP is currently Márquez versus Aprilia
Márquez meanwhile has only 50% strength in his much-mangled right arm, which he’s managing as best he can, also undergoing daily treatment. The arm hasn’t been a serious issue since Assen and Silverstone, where numerous high-speed direction changes asked too much of it. And none of the last five circuits is like those two.
Márquez currently arranges his life around his right arm, whether he’s at home, travelling or at races. It’s the main focus of his training regime and he does everything he can to protect and look after it. For example, he tries to miss any big media/marketing duties, like the British GP media event in London. That would’ve taken up half his Thursday, which he needs for physio and so on.
And he didn’t take part in Sunday morning’s Motegi go-kart ‘race’. After warm-up, he underwent yet more physio, as usual, and he certainly didn’t want to risk aggravating his arm by driving around in a kart.
The idea of getting MotoGP riders to race around in go-karts a few hours before the main event is ridiculous. It also showed utter contempt for the world’s fastest bike racers who risk their lives every time they ride out of pitlane. And it suggests that the people running MotoGP have much less of a clue about what these guys do for a living than we might’ve thought. Frankly, it’s rather worrying.
Last year I asked Márquez about the increasing number of silly PR nonsense that Liberty ask of the riders.
“Always they ask more and more and more [of us] and some day it will explode,” he answered.
Márquez was 100% right to boycott the kart event by sending a double in his place. The double wore a Ducati paddock jacket and a replica helmet with dark visor, which remained firmly shut, despite efforts by Martin and an IRTA official to ascertain the double’s identity.
Of course, Márquez got told off by MotoGP bosses for what he did. Is this really what MotoGP has come to?
Nine races to go in what’s looking like a three-way title fight between Marc Márquez and Aprilia team-mates Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi. Márquez’s injuries mean he will be able to attack at some tracks but will be forced onto the defensive at others, so which is which?
And then of course there is the concern of getting sick from dodgy airplane air on all those long-haul flights: Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and Qatar, then back to Europe for the final Portuguese and Valencia races.
The numbers certainly make Márquez the title favourite. He has won six of the last nine GPs, since his first win of 2026 at June’s Hungarian GP, including five sprint/GP doubles. Martin hasn’t won a GP since May’s French GP, which is his only double this year.
Going into Hungary, Márquez was 85 points down on Martin and didn’t take the championship lead until last month’s San Marino GP, losing it again in Austria two weeks ago, due to brake trouble on Sunday.
What about team orders? Martin will have to deal with Bezzecchi as well as Márquez at the next few races. The Italian is 49 points off the leader, so he’s far from out of the title fight, so Aprilia can’t ask him to help Martin. And both Trackhouse riders – Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez – have mathematical chances of taking the title.
On the other hand, no other Ducati rider is realistically in the title chase, so you can be sure that Ducati management will ask little brother Alex, Aldeguer and Fabio Di Giannantonio to at least not get in Márquez’s way. That might work with Alex and Aldeguer but it most likely won’t with Di Giannantonio. There’s no love lost there.
The advantage will swing this way and that between Aprilia and Ducati – who share the lead in the constructors’ championship – and Martin and Márquez all the way to the last race at Valencia.
Márquez should have the upper hand at anti-clockwise Phillip Island and Valencia; Martin’s Aprilia should be the better bike at Losail and Portimao, and they should be fairly equal at Sepang.
Let’s just hope Valencia doesn’t get a taste of winter, with the 2027 finale set to be the latest in MotoGP history.
