Aprilia’s dominance continued at the 2026 United States Grand Prix, as the brand stormed to its first double victory of the new MotoGP season.
After romping to dominant wins at the Thailand and Brazilian Grand Prix, Marco Bezzecchi led every lap of Sunday’s United States Grand Prix for his third win of the campaign.
He has now won the last five grands prix, putting him into elite territory alongside the likes of Marc Marquez, Valentino Rossi and Mick Doohan.
Bezzecchi has also led 121 consecutive laps since the Portuguese Grand Prix last November, which sets a new record previously held by Jorge Lorenzo in 2015.
The Aprilia rider leads the championship by four points over team-mate Jorge Martin, who capitalised on a contra-strategy in the sprint to claim his first victory of any kind since his title-winning 2024 season.
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Martin also finished second behind Bezzecchi in the grand prix for Aprilia’s second 1-2 of the year.
There is little doubt now about the credentials of Aprilia’s title aspirations, as well as the fact that Martin is very much in this hunt alongside Bezzecchi.
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But serious questions are now being raised about Marc Marquez and Ducati’s defence.
At a circuit where he has won seven times in his career, as well as Michelin’s tyre construction going back to the standard version, it was expected that Marquez and Ducati would have a much stronger weekend at COTA than in the first two rounds.
But Marquez’s weekend began with a 190km/h crash in FP1 and failed to improve. He was sixth in qualifying and then crashed into Fabio Di Giannantonio in the sprint.
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This netted him a long lap penalty for the main race. He ultimately finished fifth in the grand prix. Though he had podium pace, it still wasn’t pace enough that would have seen him challenge Bezzecchi for the win. He is now 36 points off the championship lead.
Ducati insists Marquez is still struggling from the aftereffects of the shoulder he injured in Indonesia last October, though this raises concerns that this problem could actually be worse than it seems.
Ducati qualified on pole with Fabio Di Giannantonio and was second in the sprint with Pecco Bagnaia. But the GP26 also chewed up its tyres at COTA in the grand prix, while it remains off the pace at the start of races compared to the Aprilia.
In the latest Crash MotoGP Podcast, Dre Harrison is joined by Lewis Duncan and Peter McLaren to discuss Ducati’s faltering defence and Aprilia’s strong start.
They also discuss the much-hated tyre pressure rule, after Pedro Acosta lost a sprint podium to it on the Saturday.
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