A mistake by its factory rider Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> forced newly crowned champion Marquez to miss the final four rounds of last season due to injury. It also arguably cost Bezzecchi two Grand Prix victories.<\/p>\n Bezzecchi had been favourite to complete the double in Indonesia, then narrowly lost out to Trackhouse Aprilia rider Raul Fernandez at Phillip Island, where he served a double long-lap penalty for the Mandalika incident.<\/p>\n Despite surrendering a potential 148 points during the races he missed, Marquez still finished the season 78 points clear of his younger brother Alex.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Bezzecchi completed Aprilia\u2019s best MotoGP<\/a> campaign in third, during his debut season on the RS-GP, but was a daunting 192 points behind Marc Marquez<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, Bezzecchi scored more points than any other rider in the second half of the season – again with the caveat that Marquez, winner of 25 of the opening 36 races, was sidelined.<\/p>\n Ducati also sealed the constructors\u2019 title by a huge 350 points over Aprilia.<\/p>\n Marco Bezzecchi in parc ferme with factory Ducati riders Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia.<\/p>\n While nobody knows what would have happened had Marquez been present in the closing rounds, Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola is confident Bezzecchi could have beaten Marquez fair-and-square in Indonesia and Phillip Island.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Before the Mandalika clash, Bezzecchi became the first rider to defeat Marquez in a dry, mistake-free 2025 Grand Prix at Silverstone.<\/p>\n The Italian then pushed the new factory Ducati star hard to the chequered flag at Assen and especially Misano, before ending the year with back-to-back GP victories at Portimao and Valencia.<\/p>\n \u201cThe target is clearly to beat Marc,\u201d Rivola told Crash.net of Aprilia\u2019s 2026 goals, when quizzed on the two-tier challenge of defeating Ducati and Marc Marquez.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s very disappointing, and apologies again to Marc for what happened in Indonesia.<\/p>\n \u201cBut also, because of that crash, I think Marco didn’t win in Indonesia and in Australia.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI’m super happy that Raul won in Australia. But we could be in a position [where Marco won those two races].\u201d<\/p>\n Marco Bezzecchi wins 2025 Portimao MotoGP.<\/p>\n Even so, Bezzecchi went on to win either a Sprint or Grand Prix at four of the final five rounds, the only exception being Sepang.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a strong sign for the [2026] championship. But obviously, it was without Marc present,\u201d Rivola added.<\/p>\n \u201cStill, I think that in Indonesia, Marco was stronger than Marc. It looks like also in Phillip Island, Marco was very special. But maybe Marc\u2026 who knows?<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that Marc is also special, but the target is to beat Marc in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Rivola expects MotoGP manufacturers “in a similar position”<\/p>\n With MotoGP engine design frozen since the start of last season for Ducati, KTM and Aprilia, Rivola isn\u2019t expecting a major shake-up in the technical order during the final season of 1000cc competition.<\/p>\n But he also warned that a couple of tenths can make all the difference.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don’t know how much the others will develop the bike for next season. But the expectation for everybody, I would say for \u201826, apart from Yamaha with a completely different [V4] bike, is to be more or less in a similar position,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cBut even if you do a small step, like a couple of tenths, maybe you gain three rows on the starting grid now! And any time you can be in, let’s say, the \u2018top train\u2019, you do a completely different race than if you start in the middle of the pack.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cMarco showed he was super good in overtaking and getting positions back in those situations, but still, you destroy the tyres. So it’s a different race.\u201d<\/p>\n Bezzecchi and team-mate Jorge Martin – who missed most of last year through injury – will unveil Aprilia\u2019s 2026 factory colours during an official team launch in Milan on Thursday, January 15.<\/p>\n Marc Marquez will return to MotoGP action at the season-opening Sepang test from February 3-5.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A clear conclusion from the 2025 MotoGP season is that beating Ducati is one challenge, beating Marc Marquez…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[18009,10669,64,63,4280,10732,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-407891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-aprilia","9":"tag-aprilia-racing","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-marc-marquez","13":"tag-marco-bezzecchi","14":"tag-motor","15":"tag-motor-sports","16":"tag-motosport","17":"tag-motosports","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Marco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3000_gng_1242072_hires.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Marco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3000_gng_1282186_hires.jpg\")
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