- Bezzecchi sweeping Sundays but bleeding Saturdays, and Martin knows it.
- The 2024 champ quietly building a title challenge from teammate’s blind spot.
- Aprilia’s biggest 2026 headache may not be Ducati.
Marco Bezzecchi began this season as the in-form dark horse from 2025. Given Marc Marquez’s stupendous record against rivals on the same bike, and Aprilia being Ducati’s only consistent challenger, Bez would have been most people’s bet to take the fight to the #93. Only now, it’s his teammate he needs to watch out for.
Not many would have anticipated the extent of Marquez’s shoulder injury from last October. Even fewer would have predicted Ducati being a clear step behind their Italian counterparts in development, especially as teams have one eye firmly on the new 850cc bikes for 2027.
Having swept all three Sunday races so far, Bez has more than lived up to the occasion. But despite a fifth consecutive race win while leading all laps, he leads the championship by just four points.
Martinator’s salvation
Meanwhile, Jorge Martín has made it his mission to make up for a disastrous debut season at the Noale-based factory team. He has a 100% top-five finish record in 2026, and the results are only getting better with more experience riding the RS-GP26.
“I’m so grateful. I know what it is being in a deep moment, so I’m really, really happy. I’m enjoying the moment a lot,” Martín said after P2 in the COTA race.
“Really here now, being present, because you never know what is going to happen next time. Really happy about my performance. I tried to push Marco to the limit. I tried to never give up, as always.”
It’s that rejuvenated tenacity that makes Martín a genuine contender once again. His 2024 title was built on eliminating errors that overcame a tally of just three Sunday victories from 20.
In fact, he won one more race in 2023 when he missed out on the championship. But 16 podiums was enough consistency to dethrone factory-backed Pecco Bagnaia at the second attempt. On whether the real Martín is back, Bagnaia’s post-COTA sprint reaction summed it up perfectly: “F***ing b***ard, Jorge!”
The Jorge Martín trump card
Apart from banking solid points, there’s one more ace up Martin’s sleeve, and it’s not even a trade secret: his sprint supremacy. His record-extending 17th Saturday win to finish as the highest scorer in Round 3 is also the one area where his teammate has been haemorrhaging points.
Bezzecchi only has four sprint gold medals in his MotoGP career, compared to nine main race victories. More strikingly, he has never managed the full haul of 37 points available at a single round since the sprint era began in 2023. His best of 34 points came in Argentina that year, and two Saturday DNFs in 2026 already don’t exactly signal a reversal of fortunes.
“As long as I can’t avoid mistakes like the one on Saturday, I won’t feel like a contender,” he told DAZN.
“I’m certainly fast and strong in these early races, but there’s still a lot of work to be done and room for improvement. We have to overcome all the challenges we’ll face, and we need to keep our feet on the ground because this is still a long way off.”
The 27-year-old will be fueled and fired up to claim his maiden MotoGP world title. But the lure of becoming Aprilia’s first world champion is equally irresistible for Martín. Factor in the chance to repay his first works team opportunity and previous title fight experience, and Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola’s biggest headache won’t be to maintain his machine’s competitive edge. It’d be to ensure a civil war doesn’t scupper either of his two alpha wolves.
As for Bez, he needs to find his Saturday self before Martín finds another gear. Otherwise, the four-point cushion would be made light work of fast.
