One stands, give or take, 30 metres tall.
The other, all of 1.68 metres.
But when it comes to the enormous retaining wall that’s the standout physical landmark of the Aragon circuit set to play host to round 13 of the MotoGP season this weekend and Marc Marquez, it’s the diminutive Spaniard that’s more imposing, more impenetrable.
Every MotoGP qualifying, practice and race LIVE and ad-break free from lights out to the chequered flag. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >
On the road map to the Ducati rider’s world championship defence, it’s a stop on the schedule that couldn’t come at a more opportune time.
Raul Fernandez’s win at the previous round at Silverstone – as part of an Aprilia podium lockout for the third time this season with factory pair Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi – saw Marquez drop to fourth in the standings and 40 points behind series leader Martin, with 10 – perhaps nine, if November’s scheduled Qatar round doesn’t proceed – remaining.
Worse still, Marquez laboured to seventh at Silverstone as the lingering effects of his May right shoulder surgery – “physically I wasn’t there, I was at risk of crashing … I had no control over my right arm,” he admitted afterwards – bit hard.
MORE MOTOGP NEWS
MILLER WAVES GOODBYE Aussie out at Yamaha as MotoGP journey ends
TITLE CONTENDER DOWN Ogura set for time on sidelines after bad break
With Marquez clearly in self-preservation mode at several tracks – he was a cautious seventh at Mugello and Assen, too – the road to his eighth premier-class title will be to scrounge what he can at his weak circuits where he’s physically compromised, and hammer home his advantage at stronger tracks of predominantly left-handed corners.
At Balaton Park in Hungary and the Sachsenring in Germany this season, Marquez has done just that – pole position, sprint win, Grand Prix win, a perfect haul of 37 points. For the sake of his title charge, Aragon – 17 corners, 10 that go left, most of them long, high-speed turns – needs to be much of the same.
The omens are good.
Marquez has spent the past two years at Aragon looking back – way back – to see his rivals (MotoGP Press)Source: Supplied
At Aragon in 2024, Marquez – in his first year with Ducati’s satellite Gresini outfit – won his first Grand Prix in 1043 days (the previous came for Honda at the 2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix) by qualifying on pole and leading every lap.
Fast-forward to last year – his first in red for Ducati’s factory team – he did the Aragon pole-sprint-Grand Prix double once more, leading every lap and by as much as 2.8 seconds before strolling to the line; he also led every on-track session across all three days, the first time anyone had done that since 2015.
It was his seventh win at the track in 11 MotoGP starts, with only the Sachsenring, where he won for a record 10th time in July, a happier hunting ground.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Renita and Matt preview round 13 in Aragon, discuss what could stop Marc Marquez adding an eighth win at a circuit where he’s dominated for years, and ponder the state of the rider market after Enea Bastianini signed with Trackhouse Aprilia. Listen to Pit Talk now
While Aprilia has emerged as the bike to beat this season – Martin, Bezzecchi and Ai Ogura occupy the top three places in the standings – Aragon has been a post-pandemic playground for its rival Italian brand, Ducati winning the past four Grands Prix held in the remote Spanish venue since 2021, and locking out both the sprint and Grand Prix podiums last year.
For Martin and his stablemates, Aragon shapes as a weekend to scoop up what points you can and live to fight another day for tracks that suit rider and bike better, adopting the Marquez methodology from a position of comparative weakness.
If Marquez is to keep his crown – and that’s a big ‘if’ given his physical limitations – it’s a championship charge that will be carefully built brick by brick, much like the Motorland circuit’s signature wall between turns 12-14 where his rivals have historically been in his wheel tracks for a lap or two before he disappears into the distance.
Here’s your Friday form guide and predictions for the 13th round of the 2026 MotoGP season, with the 23-lap Aragon Grand Prix set for 10pm (AEST) on Sunday after the 11-lap sprint race at 11pm on Saturday (AEST).
Aragon’s enormous trackside wall is the distinctive physical feature of the remote Spanish circuit (MotoGP Press)Source: Supplied
MILLER TO TAKE TIME WITH NEXT STEP AS REPLACEMENT CONFIRMED
Jack Miller has revealed he’s “not in a massive rush” to secure a seat on the World Superbikes grid for 2027, after Yamaha confirmed one of the sport’s worst-kept secrets on Thursday when it announced it would not be retaining the out-of-contract 31-year-old for the 2027 season.
MORE MOTOGP NEWS
‘DON’T FEEL PRESSURE’ Acosta steeling himself for Marquez challenge
NEWS WRAP Outgoing Yamaha star defends teammates, French veteran back after brutal injury
Miller, in his 12th season, sits 19th in the championship with just 23 points from the opening 12 rounds, but is second of Yamaha’s four riders in the standings as the Japanese brand has regressed after changing from its traditional inline-four engine configuration to a brand-new V4 project for 2026.
The Townsville native will be replaced at Pramac by the team’s Moto2 front-runner, 22-year-old Spaniard Izan Guevara, next season, bringing an end to his 210-race career that has featured four premier-class wins.
Speaking on Thursday, an expansive Miller said his premier-class career – which began after he finished runner-up in the 2014 Moto3 championship and bypassed Moto2 altogether to debut with Honda the following season as a 20-year-old – went better than he could have expected.
Miller will walk away from MotoGP after more than 200 premier-class starts at the end of 2026 (Pramac Racing Ltd)Source: Supplied
“I’m sad, but proud of the job I’ve done,” he said.
“Results-wise, it [my career] wouldn’t stack up to some other people’s, but I’ve exceeded my own expectations.
“We’re racers, so you’re never happy with what you’ve done, you always want more. But the biggest thing I’m most proud of is the way I’ve worked in the paddock, the way I’ve dealt with people.
“I’ve worked for nearly every manufacturer on the grid, and there’s not a garage in this place I can’t walk into. That in itself is an achievement. Being professional until the very end, I’m very proud of that.”
Miller, who has ridden as part of three-man teams for Yamaha in the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hour production bike race in Japan over the past two years, finishing second on both occasions, is believed to have multiple options to continue racing in the World Superbike championship, but will take his time before making a commitment.
“I’m 31 years old, but I’ve been in MotoGP a long time and I still feel like I’ve got a lot more racing left in me,” he said.
“Not really being able to prove my full potential the last couple of years has been tough, but this chapter of my career is closing, and another one is opening up.
“We’re looking at our options over in World Superbikes, trying to swap over there, and with the experience I have with Michelin tyres over the last 11 years, I can hopefully take some of that over there and see what we can do in a different form of racing.
“We’re not in a massive rush to try to secure something tomorrow, it’s about making the decision that I like the most going forward.”
Guevara, the 2022 Moto3 champion, will partner Toprak Razgatlioglu at Pramac, the Spaniard sitting second in this year’s intermediate-class standings with one win and five podiums so far this season.
Guevara, along with compatriot Dani Holgado (Ducati) and Colombian David Alonso (Honda), is one of three confirmed rookies for 2027, with Australian Moto2 rider Senna Agius remaining in the frame for a seat with KTM’s Tech3 team.
CRYSTAL BALL: FOUR FEARLESS PREDICTIONS FOR ARAGON
Winner: Marc Marquez (Ducati). Picking a rider who has won seven of 11 MotoGP starts at a track of predominantly fast anti-clockwise corners isn’t exactly going out on a limb, but sometimes – like Hungary and Germany this year – there’s no point being a contrarian for the sake of it. Anything other than a Marquez masterclass, unless he beats himself by fluffing his lines, would be a shock.
Closest challenger: Alex Marquez (Ducati). Marc’s younger brother can do his sibling a solid at Aragon, where he finished closest – a relative term – in second in last year’s sprint and Grand Prix at Motorland. It’s not been the easiest season for the Gresini Ducati rider, who understandably hasn’t been consistently close to his best since his horror crash at Catalunya in May. But at tracks where he’s typically been fast – Jerez, Silverstone – Marquez has shown flashes of what propelled him to a career-best runner-up championship finish 12 months ago. Expect similar here, where he could inflict points damage on big bro’s rivals by finishing ahead of some of them.
Podium smoky: Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati). If there’s a rider who could ensure Ducati’s Aragon podium dominance continues, it’s likely ‘Diggia’, with the other candidates either a shadow of their best selves (Francesco Bagnaia, who must be counting down the days until he leaves for Aprilia), Fermin Aldeguer (back from injury) and Di Giannantonio’s VR46 teammate Franco Morbidelli, who sits 16th in the standings on the second-best bike in the field. Di Giannantonio has been relatively muted for the past two rounds in Germany and Great Britain, and needs a strong showing to keep himself in unlikely title contention.
Miller prospects: The Australian has two front-row starts (2021, 2022) and a podium (third in 2019) on his Aragon CV, but in keeping with the Aragon form guide, they were all in his Ducati tenure. Last year, Miller was 14th in the Grand Prix and 13th in the sprint on a Yamaha that haemorrhaged time down the 968-metre straight between the final chicane and the last sequence of corners, and there’s no reason to expect that to change in a year where Yamaha has propped up the standings. Scoring points would be the ceiling of his bike’s capabilities.