Why the true test of Aprilia’s MotoGP title credentials will come in America

There have been 101 racing laps across the previous four grands prix. And Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi has led every single one of them, as he registered his fourth successive Sunday victory and second of the 2026 campaign last weekend at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

While the track surface may have been crumbling, Aprilia’s increasingly concerning threat to Ducati’s recent title dominance certainly didn’t in Goiania. Coming from Q1 after a disastrous Friday, Bezzecchi didn’t look all that sharp in the sprint, as he dropped from second on the grid to finish four seconds off Marc Marquez in fourth.

Though Aprilia is clearly strong when it counts, the trend from last year where the RS-GP is considerably stronger on Sundays than it is on Saturdays has persisted into 2026 for now. So, what changed for the main race?

“The medium tyre on the rear, since this morning, fixed something that we struggled a bit with during the sprint race,” Aprilia team manager Paolo Bonora explained. “There was too much force on the front tyre, and the rear medium helped a bit in the braking, and also the acceleration phase for the stability, we saw in the warm-up for Jorge [Martin] and Marco in particular.”

Working to Aprilia’s favour again was the stiffer rear tyre construction that Michelin brought to Goiania. This was highlighted by some in Thailand as being a key advantage for Aprilia, with the Brazilian Grand Prix following an almost identical script to the Buriram race.

Bezzecchi nailed his launch from second on the grid and instantly put daylight between himself and the chasing pack. By the start of lap five of the shortened 23-tour race, cut down from 31 laps due to the track breaking up, Bezzecchi was already over a second clear.

When Jorge Martin had broken through into second on lap six, his pace pretty much identical to that of his team-mate’s. But the time lost in clearing the two Ducatis of Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marc Marquez left him with too much of a gap to bridge with a pace differential not big enough to make a considerable dent into Bezzecchi’s lead.

Whether Martin could have challenged Bezzecchi for the win had his start from fifth been better seems unlikely. Bezzecchi was still in the high 1m18s as of the penultimate lap, while Martin’s pace had dipped into the mid 1m19s for the final three tours.

Aprilia has now annexed the top of all three championships, with Bezzecchi 11 points clear of Martin in the riders’ standings. So far, then, the Aprilia challenge is motoring along at pace, but Massimo Rivola is proceeding with caution.

“I think the role is still the same: two race weekends don’t change Aprilia’s status,” he said. “They’ve certainly change the standings, but there are still 40 races left and everything certainly can change. Our job is to stay focused every day, and I’m sure that if we do that, by the end of the season you’ll be able to come tell me that we now have a good chance, and I’ll say ‘that’s right’.”

Ducati isn’t in trouble yet, but it should definitely be worried

The pecking order looked like it had returned to its pre-2026 normal after the first two days of the Brazilian Grand Prix. Ducati was fast on Friday, the iffy conditions playing well into Marc Marquez’s hands, while Saturday’s runaway duel between Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio for victory as Aprilia floundered behind suggested the GP26 is good when it works.

But Saturday’s form for Marquez and Di Giannantonio did follow a similar pattern to Thailand, where the former nearly won but for a penalty after an aggressive overtake on Pedro Acosta.

Marquez urged caution after his sprint win, noting that he still isn’t fully comfortable on the GP26 yet. Goiania is also arguably the worst layout for his physical limitations, equal only to perhaps Silverstone.

Ducati was pretty beaten after just a handful of laps in the shortened grand prix, with a Marquez podium going away when he lost the front going over a broken bit of asphalt. Di Giannantonio reset Ducati’s podium streak tally to one, after it was snapped in Thailand, with a third-place finish.

The GP26 clearly isn’t firing up its tyres in the same way that the Aprilia can in the early parts of the laps, with Marquez noting: “I struggled in the first few laps because I didn’t feel comfortable. That’s all. We need to improve because I just lacked confidence. I didn’t have the feel I wanted, but we know we have to work on it.”

Read more: Unacceptable Brazil track farce was MotoGP at its worst

A lack of feeling is something Pecco Bagnaia struggled with, which ultimately led to his crash on lap 11 of 23.

From a Ducati perspective, the stiffer rear tyre carcass that caused it so many issues in Thailand still offers the brand a bit of grace for its underwhelming start to the 2026 campaign. From a Marquez perspective, his right shoulder is still recovering, and fast, right-handed tracks nowadays really don’t suit him.

That was evident at Silverstone last year, where he was beaten to sprint victory and couldn’t match the race-winning pace of Bezzecchi and Aprilia. But the RS-GP is seemingly a more rider-friendly package as this early stage of the year.

“In my opinion, the package is a single entity; the bike and the rider,” he said. “It’s not just the rider or just the bike: they’re working very well together, and it shows.” On Sunday in Brazil, Ai Ogura was fifth and Raul Fernandez recovered to 10th.

Aprilia is benefitting from Ducati’s approach of strength in numbers, with four factory RS-GPs allowing to gain more data through a race weekend and apply that any problems that may arise, as they did on Saturday in Brazil.

“Having four fast riders with four fast bikes is a huge help,” Rivola said. “That’s why I insisted in the past, when I saw eight Ducati with strong riders [for Aprilia to have more bikes]. It’s an advantage, and now that we have four riders with good bikes, we see that we can keep improving with every session.”

Austin result will be real indicator or Aprilia’s potential

While it’s easy to look at only the first two rounds of 2026 when assessing Aprilia’s form, this has been a long time coming. From about the midway point of last season, Bezzecchi and Aprilia were constant podium challengers. While the absence of Marquez in the final rounds put a small asterisk next to his Portimao and Valencia wins into, the Aprilia was still clearly the best bike in those situations.

But the first two rounds of 2026 have been unusual, with sweltering conditions and an abnormal tyre construction.

Fabio Di Giannantonio noted: “Once the conditions get hot, gets a little slippery, with the grip level gets low, they [Aprilia] can continue to push with the front into the corners with a lot of speed. I tried to make it, but we are much more in trouble, our front is a lot less stable and precise on that. Once they make this entry, they are much better-positioned on the exit. So, they can maximise the exit too.”

This weekend’s race in Austin won’t be a cold one, based on current forecasts, but the return to the conventional tyre construction will offer a better clue as to where Aprilia and Ducati truly stack up against each other.

Aprilia has enjoyed recent success at COTA, with Maverick Vinales winning in 2024. But neither he nor Aprilia fully understood the pace it showed that day, as it was not a performance he ever repeated that season. It also came after Marquez crashed as a result of a front brake issue.

Marquez, of course, is the king of COTA. He won every year there between 2013 and 2021, and should have added to that tally in 2025 when he crashed out of a commanding lead over a damp kerb.

The anticlockwise layout will take the strain out of his right shoulder and ideally allow him to better understand just where the GP26 stands, especially heading into the European phase of the championship, where the pecking order should settle down.

However, if Aprilia is able to match him, and even beat him, then that will act as undisputed proof that Ducati is in big trouble…