That was the weekend of a champion; never quite the favourite coming into the race, some scary-fast corners that suit his opposition, alongside a sector or two that suit his bike, qualifying well, piling pressure on, resisting pressure and taking maximum points when his rivals falter.
Marc Marquez is relentless. While he is still in a race, his rivals can never relax, can never take a result for granted because, if the bike is right, then he will be right there where you don’t need him to be, ready to wait for the odds to turn back in his favour, and pick up the pieces of the slightest mistake by his rivals. He did it at the beginning of the season; after the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, he was 102 points adrift of runaway leader Bezzecchi. But he was patient in those first seven rounds and didn’t panic; he kept his head and was rewarded aplenty as Bezzecchi crumbled in front of his eyes, for various reasons.
Seven races since Mugello, a maximum of 259 points available; Marquez has taken 203, Martin 118 and Bezzecchi merely 68. Five times in seven rounds, Bezzecchi has failed to score on Sunday; five times in seven rounds, Marquez has won. That’s not how Bez will win the title this year. The same can be said for Aprilia vs. Ducati; the RS-GP is a better bike than the GP26, but the latter has Marc Marquez on board, and that’s the secret weapon.
Misano was Aprilia’s race; Bezzecchi’s record pole lap told us as much. Jorge Martin might have started fifth on the grid, but the expected advantage the Aprilias had over the opposition made that almost academic, and so it transpired in the Grand Prix, after Bezzecchi had inexplicably thrown his RS-GP down the road on the first lap; Martin stalked Marc Marquez, calmly took the lead and started to pull away.
Then arm-pump reared its ugly head for Martin, and he eventually faded to a distant fifth place at the flag. Meanwhile, Marc Marquez resisted pressure from his brother to take yet another double on a race weekend. He now shares the lead of the championship table with Martin but leads the title challenge courtesy of his five GP victories. Bezzecchi is by no means out of it, 33 points further back, but his fifth no-score of the season in a GP is what he can’t afford if his title challenge is to remain on track. As Joan Mir in 2020 and Jorge Martin in 2024 showed, consistency is what wins titles, not necessarily outright victories.
Marquez was never the favourite because this is a clockwise circuit, which would put extra stress on his damaged right arm, which, by all accounts, is at 50% of its healthy potential. Not that you would have noticed it, however; second on the grid and two wins doesn’t really sound like a man riding compromised, does it? Mind you, Bezzecchi is also riding with a damaged knee, which hardly prevented him from taking pole position and finishing second in the Sprint race. If ever we needed confirmation that these guys are not quite human, then there you have it.
Before the race, Marquez posted a picture of his right arm, which was pretty wince-inducing, showing the effects of seven major surgeries to the upper arm. This had two important effects: first, he claimed that it “set him free” in terms of media and fan speculation, and a rider at peace with the world is a dangerous rider for his rivals. Secondly, and most importantly, it can only be demoralising for his rivals; he is beating them in this condition, for goodness’ sake! In 2025, he was fully fit when he trounced them all; in 2026 he’s 75% of the man he was, and he’s still beating them!
Bezzecchi’s crash in the GP was an inexplicable error and one that, as we have mentioned, he is making far too often – before the summer break, there were four consecutive no-score Sundays. In the Sprint, he lost out to Marc at the start and was determined to not make the same mistake in the GP. He didn’t, but then simply pushed too hard on new tyres with a full fuel tank; he got his line slightly wrong and paid the price, and it was an expensive one. Bezzecchi had a chance to not only narrow the gap to the top, but also to induce some demoralisation of his own on his teammate and Marquez.
Jorge Martin, for his part, has been erratic and now he has an arm-pump issue that may need surgery at completely the wrong time in the season, with five races in six weeks coming up. Throw Ai Ogura’s absence into the mix, and it’s easy to imagine Aprilia snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But all is not lost. Seven rounds to go (eight if Qatar does happen) and some of those tracks definitely favour Aprilia, including this coming weekend’s race in Austria. The Aprilia likes the stiffer-carcass rear tyre Michelin brings to that race, and that gives them an advantage. But Marquez simply has to play the percentage game when the conditions don’t particularly suit him or his machine, and make sure he’s in the right place to benefit when those around him make a mess. Of course, it could be that Marquez makes a hash of things and allows the Aprilia riders – level on points and 33 points behind respectively – to leap ahead, or close right up again. The Aprilia riders have the best bike, Ducati has the best rider; let battle commence!
Before we close for this week, we couldn’t possibly forget to congratulate Darryn Binder on his sensational championship title in America. With ten victories and thirteen podiums to his name this year, he clinched the 2026 AMA Supersport Championship with one round remaining. What a fantastic achievement, and ZABikers sends our congratulations to Darryn and the whole Binder family.
