DUCATI AND APRILIA ARE LEVEL AS RIVOLA TARGETS MARQUEZ AND DUCATI

Ducati and Aprilia are locked in a close fight for MotoGP’s 2026 titles, with six rounds remaining. The manufacturers are level on 469 points after 16 of 22 events, while Aprilia rider Jorge Martin leads Ducati’s Marc Marquez by just two points, 333 to 331. The manufacturers’ tie is unprecedented at this stage of a season.

Aprilia set the early pace, leading all three championships after the French Grand Prix and holding a 34-point advantage in the manufacturers’ standings. Its momentum faltered from Assen, then Marco Bezzecchi was injured at the Sachsenring. Ducati, meanwhile, found its stride with Marquez before the summer break. He dominated in Hungary, Germany, Aragon, San Marino and Japan, bringing Ducati back level with Aprilia in the manufacturers’ contest.

Ducati arrives in the closing stretch with a strong recent record: the team has won the past four riders’ titles and six constructors’ crowns, and Marquez has taken four double victories in the last six Grands Prix. But Ducati Corse chief Gigi Dall’Igna warned that another title is far from assured. “Every championship is different, and this is possibly the most difficult,” he said ahead of the Indonesian Grand Prix. “We are very close to our rivals. Of course, we have won some races at recent events, but our rival is very fast. It won’t be easy to take the crown.”

The scale of Ducati’s turnaround is striking. After the Mugello weekend, Marquez was 102 points behind the championship leader and had said he did not expect to have a chance of winning the title. Dall’Igna acknowledged that the deficit made a repeat crown hard to imagine at the time. Still, he said, the team’s responsibility was to keep believing and pushing forward. Marquez, he added, was central to that effort: “He pushed us enormously, and he believed. Now we are here!”

Aprilia racing chief Massimo Rivola called the fight a “great situation and opportunity” and said it was a privilege to compete against a manufacturer with Ducati’s recent success. His view of the run-in was straightforward: “The one who makes the fewest mistakes will be at the front.”

Ducati’s title challenge is now centred on Marquez, while Aprilia has four riders in the top seven. Rivola acknowledged that Marquez’s experience is a major advantage, but said Aprilia has several riders capable of remaining in the fight and intends to use its strengths to bring the title to Noale. “Beating Marc is the biggest task of all,” he said. “But it isn’t impossible—we’ve already done it, and beating Marc and Ducati is the greatest satisfaction there is in MotoGP right now.”

Dall’Igna also recognised the challenge posed by Martin, a former Ducati rider whose late-season consistency could prove important. “Jorge is a rider who normally doesn’t make big mistakes at the end of the season—that’s an advantage for him,” he said. But Marquez, too, knows what a title battle demands: “He is used to fighting for the championship. He knows what to do.”

The contest has a personal dimension for Dall’Igna. Before joining Ducati at the end of 2013, he spent 20 years at Aprilia, and he now finds himself competing against the manufacturer and riders he once worked with. Asked about facing his former team, he said he did not dwell on it, though he called it an interesting question. “I have many friends at Aprilia, and if someone has to beat us, it’s better that they are friends,” he said, prompting a laugh with Rivola.