Alex Márquez dances at Jerez, will Marc ever dance again?

Aprilia destroyed Ducati at the first three MotoGP rounds of 2026. Marco Bezzecchi led every lap in Thailand, Brazil and the United States, while team-mate Jorge Martin made it a one-two in Brazil and the USA and won the COTA sprint.

When MotoGP teams arrived at Jerez last week, there was talk of a Ducati panic, the Bologna brand’s three teams throwing all kinds of fixes at its latest Desmosedici in an effort to close the gap.

Aprilia had gained so much of an advantage in braking that Ducati flattered its greatest rival with imitation at COTA, equipping its factory riders Marc Márquez and Pecco Bagnaia with RS-GP-style seat/leg aerodynamics. These increase rear downforce during braking, allowing riders to better use the rear tyre to help stop the bike, a critical part of current MotoGP performance.

During the four-week break between COTA and Jerez, Ducati burned the midnight oil in Bologna, focusing on improving engine-brake electronics, once again to improve braking performance, because if you don’t stop right, you won’t turn the corner correctly and if you don’t turn the corner right you will be late with the throttle, so you won’t accelerate properly. In other words, your whole lap time is compromised by not having perfect braking-and-entry performance.

Jerez winner Alex Márquez – for the second year running – never made the top five in the first three GPs and therefore benefited most from Ducati’s updates.

“At the first three races I was not able to stop the bike in the correct way,” said Márquez, who used Ducati’s new seat/leg aero at Jerez. “We are also introducing many things in the electronics, in all parameters, not only engine-brake. Now I’m not fighting with the bike, I’m dancing a bit.”

Of course, the big question for the younger Márquez was how the GP26 compares to the GP24 he rode last year, the greatest MotoGP bike of all time.

“The feeling is more or less in the same point,” he said. “I’m struggling a little bit in braking but maybe I’m a little better than last year at the apex.

“The next three races will be important to understand if the step we made this weekend is real or just one weekend. Aprilia is still half a step in front of us, so we need to find something to be a bit better.”

Jerez third-place man Fabio Di Giannantonio says the latest Ducati is better than the GP25 he raced last year, especially since he’s gone his own way on set-up.

“Our bike has a strong front and a really high level of rear grip, but I’d love to have more information from the front, so I can push more and handle better some situations when the grip goes down,” said the VR46 man who chased Aprilia’s world-championship-leader Marco Bezzecchi throughout Sunday’s race. “I’m really happy with the bike, but on race pace, Aprilia still has something more.”

Di Giannantonio raced Jerez without Ducati’s aero and engine-brake updates because he didn’t want to risk confusing himself during a race weekend, preferring to evaluate these upgrades in the Monday test.

Jorge Martin completed the Ducati-Aprilia-Ducati-Aprilia top four and believes the two bikes are so close that it’s down to the riders to make the difference.

“There is no gap,” he said. “The Aprilia and Ducati are different – one is faster in one point, the other is faster in another. Here it seems the Ducatis were faster in the fast corners, when normally it’s the opposite, so I think it’s more down to the riders to adapt to the tracks and to the bikes. This race was a mix of Aprilia and Ducati. I think it will be like this all season – it’s more about the rider than the bike at the moment.”

Bezzecchi agreed with his team-mate.

“Stability is something we are still working on, because in the fast parts here I suffered a bit,” he said. “This was the biggest different between me and Alex, apart from his lines, which were super-good.”

Bagnaia is the odd man out in the GP26 puzzle – his best Sunday result so far is a ninth in the season-opening Thai GP. The twice MotoGP king has struggled with rear-tyre degradation since the start of the year, which he also attributes to braking

“We need to force a lot to stop the bike in braking, so the rear tyre starts to slide,” he said. “So when you need to open the throttle, you haven’t turned in the correct way, so you have to force the rear tyre, which makes its grip level drop more.”

The elder Márquez may have taken pole position on a drying track and won Saturday’s sprint despite crashing when the rain came down, but he was never close to challenging for victory in the dry.

This has nothing to do with the GP26. Quite simply, the seven-time MotoGP king’s right shoulder is far from right, even though it’s been almost seven months since he sustained the injury during last year’s Indonesian GP. The big question now is this: if his much-mangled shoulder isn’t right after seven months, when will it be?

Because, of course, Márquez didn’t only damage the shoulder at Mandalika, he’s had numerous surgeries on the shoulder and the humerus bone over the years, so that part of his body is a mess.

Back in March, Márquez said that Jerez would tell him where he’s at with fitness. Throughout the weekend, it was obvious that the shoulder is still weak and painful – the way he handled the prosecco after winning the sprint perfectly illustrated his problems. His upper right side is weak and painful, so, on a dry track, when the physical forces are far greater than riding in the rain, he can’t get himself into the right position to ride at the limit while maintaining control.

Did this weakness play a part in Sunday’s high-speed second-lap crash? Maybe. What is certain is that the 100mph get-off only battered his bad shoulder some more.