We say it every year but, boy, did that seem like a long summer break! It’s inevitable, I guess, when the season so far has been so good, the racing excellent and the podium so varied, that we can’t wait for the action to resume. This year, the rise of Aprilia is complete, and the battle with Ducati well and truly joined, the pendulum swinging between the two relatively evenly.
It’s been a real up-and-down season for all the top points scorers; Bezzecchi’s fine run of three wins on the trot before falling precipitously from grace through accidents and incidents; Martin living in his team-mates shadow before bursting forth and seizing the initiative; Marc Marquez’ continuing injury issues keeping him on the sidelines briefly before getting into his stride, winning three out of the four races before the summer break.
And over it all, there has been Aprilia’s success rate; front-row lock-outs; podium lock-outs; each of the four riders winning a race – both Sprint and Grand Prix victories; the top three positions in the championship. This is a manufacturer that has really come of age.
Silverstone was always going to favour the Aprilias, but I’m not sure anyone predicted how much of an advantage they would have over the Ducatis. At stop-and-go tracks, the Ducati GP26 is in its element, but when the going is fast and sweeping, the Aprilia is untouchable. The Ducatis suffered dreadfully in the Sprint race with the soft rear tyres dropping off a cliff even before half distance; Marc Marquez was lucky to salvage a single point, and he is back to 41 points adrift of Martin at the top of the table, while Bezzecchi is 31 points behind his teammate.
Bezzecchi’s pair of third places at Silverstone were incredible; here, after all, was a rider who could barely walk on Sunday morning, still suffering from a damaged knee; he looked dreadful, and to not only take third in the Grand Prix but also fend off concerted attacks from Alex Marquez has to be one of the grittiest rides in recent memory. Silverstone puts massive strains on a fully fit body, so what Bez was going through can barely be imagined, but he desperately needed this boost after a run of dreadful luck and misfortune that saw him earn a mere handful of points while the likes of Marc Marquez earned over a hundred points and Martin took over at the top of the table.
And let’s not ignore Raul Fernandez’s performance. After crashing out of the Sprint, much to his own disgust, his performance in the Grand Prix was devastating; one second ahead at the end of the first lap, three seconds ahead at the end of lap six; it would go up to 4.4 seconds at one point, and no one had any type of answer for that pace. Talk about good timing; his first victory since Philip Island last year and mere days after penning a new two-year deal with Trackhouse.
The next race in Aragon will likely favour the Ducatis and, being an anti-clockwise track, Marc Marquez in particular, but the notable thing about this season is that Aprilia has managed to salvage good points from races at tracks the RS-GP doesn’t particularly like, whereas the Ducatis largely fail to do the same at tracks the GP26 doesn’t like. Also, Marc is fighting a lone battle against the massed Aprilias, as Bagnaia on the other factory Ducati continues to have a torrid time of it and can’t really contribute anything to Ducati’s title-fighting fund.
The only thing that is certain at the moment is that the championship is wide open with ten races still to be run. Forget points differences; Both Martin and Marc Marquez have shown that even a huge deficit can be overturned, while injury is sadly an all-too-familiar presence up and down pit lane; one day on top of the world, the next in the depths of pain and despair.
There wasn’t a huge amount of news during the summer break, and what news there was, centred around the rider market for 2027. Fabio Quartararo is finally confirmed as heading to the factory Honda team, to be joined potentially by Moto2 star Davide Alonso, although that seat could go to current LCR Honda rider Diogo Moreira, Alonso then taking the LCR seat. Raul Fernandez has signed a two-year deal with Trackhouse Aprilia, but it looks as if Maverick Viñales’ time in MotoGP might be up.
Sadly, for South African fans, Brad Binder’s time in MotoGP is also up, and it looks like he’ll be heading to World Superbikes, perhaps with BMW. His time in MotoGP will remain one of the great “what ifs” of racing. When he went to KTM, both rider and team were on the up, and he quickly had the comfort and reassurance of a long-term contract. But all too soon, that long contract increasingly had all the appearances of a millstone, as the KTM failed to develop and even went backwards, effectively wasting Binder’s time and talent.
Would his career and success trajectories have been different if he had been riding another bike? Well, when he signed for KTM for 2020, the hot tickets were Honda and Yamaha, with Suzuki and Ducati a close third and Aprilia yet to come fully on song. KTM was also a hot, if unproven, ticket and Brad confirmed this potential with a victory in Brno in only the third round of that first season. There was another victory in 2021 – that mad dry/wet race in Austria – but, since then, there have only been nine more podiums. In that same period, Honda and Yamaha have faded drastically, while Ducati and, recently, Aprilia have taken over at the top, and KTM has remained mired in the midfield. So, even if Binder had signed for Honda or Yamaha back in 2020, he would still be in the same position today, although he might have had more success before the slump.
Binder then had the destabilising effect of the “next big thing” in the form of Pedro Acosta coming into the team. Where once Brad himself had been the “NBT”, he was now being overshadowed by the young upstart, and that can’t be a happy space for a rider, who has to have towering self-belief if he is to perform at the top of his game.
Only those behind closed doors at KTM know exactly what has been going on; was Brad being sacrificed in favour of Acosta, being given experimental parts to develop while Acosta reaped the benefit of the hard work? In the event of a lack of enough new parts to go around, was Acosta being favoured over Binder? Was Acosta simply the right rider on the RC16 at the right time, even if he himself wasn’t able to drag the bike to the top step of the podium?
Would a different bike have allowed Brad to stretch his wings and soar? Well, that’s the “what if”, isn’t it? One thing is for certain: Brad Binder can leave the MotoGP paddock with his head justifiably held high, and it will be fascinating to see what he can do in Superbikes, where it is looking like he will be joined by Jack Miller. That’s at least two entertaining characters leaving the MotoGP paddock, so let’s hope the incoming riders bring their fair share of colour.
Aragon is the next destination but, having been teased with a return to action after a four-week break, we now have three weeks to wait for the next race! The likes of Marco Bezzecchi and Marc Marquez will be happy – more time to recover – but that’s not much good for the rest of us!
