APRILIA’S EQUAL TREATMENT MAY HAVE OPENED THE DOOR FOR MARQUEZ

Marc Marquez is close to securing the MotoGP title after a remarkable recovery from injury, but paddock opinion reported by journalist Emilio Perez de Rozas is that Aprilia’s decision to give Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi equal treatment may have helped him get there.

The scale of Marquez’s turnaround was hard to imagine after Aprilia’s one-two at Mugello in May. Bezzecchi won and led Marquez by 102 points, while Martin was 85 points ahead. Aprilia had not expected Marquez to contend after he underwent a second operation on his 2025 shoulder injury and missed two races. He has since fought back despite, as the source describes it, riding with “one and a half arms”.

Perez de Rozas says “everyone” in the paddock believes Aprilia would be “close to the title” had the team put “all of their eggs” in Martin’s basket. The choice was not straightforward: Bezzecchi was a championship contender for much of the season, has renewed with Aprilia and only lost ground in recent races. Martin, meanwhile, has tried to leave his contract early and is set to join Yamaha. Perez de Rozas says those circumstances are “taking their toll”.

Aprilia has not ruled out team orders, but has so far declined to use them. That surprised some observers, including Marquez’s camp, which expected Trackhouse rider Raul Fernandez to be told to let Martin through for second place in Indonesia. No such instruction came. The team’s approach respected both riders’ interests, but may have left Martin without extra support in the title fight.

A pivotal moment came in Australia, where Martin crashed while the pair were almost level. The incident cost him a possible 12-point haul and later sidelined him in Malaysia. A larger advantage might also have allowed Martin to take fewer risks against Marquez at Phillip Island. Martin has been more consistent than Bezzecchi in races and has already won a MotoGP championship, although Bezzecchi leads their qualifying comparison 12-7. The new report says Martin has had five retirements this season, but identifies his Phillip Island Sprint crash—where he broke his wrist—as a defining error that ultimately kept him out of the Malaysian round. Bezzecchi, meanwhile, has failed to score in nine of the 25 races since leading after Mugello, with injuries, discipline and racing incidents among the factors.

The latest Qatar round underlined how far Marquez has come. He missed his first mathematical chance to clinch the championship, but still outscored Martin and Bezzecchi across the weekend. He now leads Martin by 60 points and Bezzecchi by 74, with 74 points available across the final rounds at Portimao and Valencia. Marquez won the Qatar Sprint and finished second in the Grand Prix; he can clinch the title in Portimao’s Saturday Sprint with a victory, whatever Martin does. Bezzecchi won Sunday’s race—his sixth Grand Prix victory of the season, one fewer than Marquez—but fell after contact with Marquez in the Sprint. He has recorded 11 non-scores, compared with six for Marquez, all before the Spaniard’s latest shoulder operation; Martin has seven non-scores but only one Sunday win.

Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola praised his team’s progress while acknowledging the points lost during the season as lessons for the future. He said he felt “more proud” than angry, citing the work to improve the bike and riders and the team’s determination to keep trying. Asked whether Aprilia had lost the title more than Ducati had won it, he credited Marquez: “Honestly, he made the difference, he did it again today.” Rivola said Marquez had managed weekends astutely, scoring heavily when possible and winning on difficult tracks, adding: “It’s not by chance, Marc is truly great.”

Rivola also stressed that Aprilia remains in contention for team and constructors’ honours. The team leads the teams’ standings by 124 points over Ducati Lenovo and is eight points behind in the constructors’ table. He said Aprilia deserved the constructors’ title and argued that its scoring system should be reconsidered, noting that “four Aprilias sometimes aren’t enough to beat Marquez”. The new report says Aprilia could claim its first teams’ title and describes its bike as arguably the season’s best, but argues the team squandered a rare chance to win the riders’ crown.

Rivola could argue that backing Martin would not have changed the outcome, and favouring him over Bezzecchi would have been difficult to justify while the Italian remained in contention. Aprilia is still in a strong position to pursue its first teams’ title, but its decision to keep both riders on equal terms is viewed by many in the paddock as a missed opportunity—and a gift to Marquez, who has turned a huge deficit into a chance to clinch the crown with rounds to spare.