MISANO UNDERLINES APRILIA’S TITLE PRESSURE PROBLEM AS MARQUEZ CLOSES THE GAP

Misano has sharpened the picture of this MotoGP title fight: Aprilia’s RS-GP is still the faster package, but the team’s biggest challenge may be psychological rather than technical. After the Italian Grand Prix, Marc Marquez’s comeback has turned a near-impossible deficit into a straight fight at the top, and the pressure that comes with chasing him is now showing up most clearly in Aprilia’s results.

Marquez’s season turnaround has been dramatic. After returning from surgery to address a long-standing nerve issue linked to his Indonesian Grand Prix crash, he had effectively fallen out of contention. Yet he has since won five races, including four on weekends where he scored 37 points. Over the seven races after the Italian GP, Marquez collected 203 points, while Jorge Martin scored 118 and Marco Bezzecchi managed 68. The result is that Marquez has erased a 102-point gap to stand level with Martin on 274, taking top spot on the strength of better results.

A key factor in the narrative around Misano is Marquez’s physical situation. His surgeon has said his right shoulder is functioning at only 50% of full capacity. Speaking at Misano, Marquez referenced the damage he showed on social media after Aragon, saying: “What happened after Aragon helps me to just concentrate and to be relaxed, and to be open to everybody that I will try to [give my best] with what I have, and that’s what I’m doing. This gives me the feeling I believe I need to fight for the championship.” He also described the post as setting him “free,” framing his condition as something that helps him focus rather than something that holds him back.

On track at Misano, Aprilia’s speed was evident. Bezzecchi set a sub-1m30s pole lap, and Martin struggled to match that pace in qualifying and throughout the weekend on soft tyres. Marquez, meanwhile, revealed that he pushed Ducati’s limits in the bid for pole, breaking the lean angle record at 65 degrees while chasing the top spot—only to miss it by almost 0.2s.

Race day underlined the contrast between Aprilia’s qualifying strength and the pressure of converting it into championship points. Bezzecchi converted pole into the holeshot and looked set to pull away, but he crashed in front of his home grandstand at Turn 13. He later explained that he got a bit out of shape through the fast right-hand sequence before Turn 13 and was slightly off-line when he touched the brakes. Crash.net added that it was a nightmare Sunday for Aprilia, with Bezzecchi’s Turn 13 crash on the opening lap leaving him 33 points behind Marquez and Martin at the top.

That crash was not an isolated incident. For the fifth time in seven rounds, Bezzecchi failed to score on a Sunday. The article notes that Marquez, in the same span, has registered maximum 25 points each time. Bezzecchi started Sunday 22 points behind the championship lead and finished 33 points adrift of Marquez and Aprilia team-mate Martin—still recoverable with at least seven rounds remaining, but potentially harder to recover from mentally.

The report also points to how other title rivals have been affected by misfortune. Martin’s Misano race was ruined by an unexpected arm pump issue, and the piece adds that he may need surgery after Austria due to the busy schedule. Crash.net also reported that Martin is now pondering surgery after the arm pump problem. It also mentions that Ai Ogura has been sidelined since before Aragon, removing another potential challenger from the board.

Misano also added another layer to Marquez’s mental edge. After the race at Misano, he repeated what has become his catchphrase in 2026: “the opponents gave me a present”. “When I taste that present, it was sweet,” he added. The same report notes that Marquez’s rise to the top has been aided by the countback rule, and that it is the first time since Pedro Acosta’s Thailand Sprint win and second place in the GP that Aprilia no longer see one of their riders named in first place.

Bezzecchi’s response after Misano was focused on rebuilding. Speaking to the official MotoGP website, he said: “The season is still very long, my target remains the same, which is to try to be back at my beginning of the season shape.” He added that Marquez is “doing his job in a proper way” and that Martin has been “amazing since the beginning,” while admitting: “Unfortunately, I am a little bit far [back] now, but it’s not over yet. Many points still to play with and we will try our best. But at the moment, I look a little bit more to myself. I try to improve many things and there are many things I need to work on.”

With Austria next, Aprilia heads to the Red Bull Ring with reasons to believe the RS-GP can regain momentum. The report states the bike worked well earlier in the season on the stiffer rear tyre carcass that Michelin will bring to the track, and it contrasts that with Ducati’s struggles on that tyre in the first two rounds—though it also notes Marquez had fitness issues early on.

In the end, Misano’s message is that Aprilia’s engineering advantage remains real, but the championship pressure is now a variable it cannot simply engineer away. Bezzecchi and Martin have not yet faced the same kind of sustained title pressure against Marquez that Marquez has been absorbing and converting into results, and that difference is shaping the momentum heading out of Misano.