{"id":557563,"date":"2026-03-22T19:12:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/557563\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T19:12:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:12:04","slug":"we-are-a-step-away-from-ducati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/557563\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We are a step away from Ducati’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jorge Martin<\/a> has conceded that Aprilia is lagging behind Ducati heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix, predicting it will be \u201cimpossible\u201d to follow the Desmosedici if conditions remain unchanged.<\/p>\n

The 2024 MotoGP world champion made that comment following Saturday\u2019s sprint race at Goiania, where title holder\u00a0Marc Marquez<\/a> led a 1-2 for Ducati ahead of Fabio di Giannantonio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aprilia’s charge was spearheaded by an emotional Martin in third, with team-mate Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> and Trackhouse\u2019s Ai Ogura<\/a> trailing him in fourth and fifth respectively. The only Aprilia rider to struggle on Saturday was Raul Fernandez, who failed to escape Q1 and then finished outside the points in 16th.<\/p>\n

While the Noale-based marque dominated the season-opening Thailand Grand Prix earlier this month with a 1-3-4-5, Martin believes the pendulum has swung back in Ducati\u2019s favour on MotoGP\u2019s first visit to Brazil in over two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou say it\u2019s an Aprilia track but we have a Ducati 1-2,\u201d Martin told TNT Sports. \u201cWe are a step away from them. I\u2018m confident. Here, it\u2019s more about how fast riders can adapt to the conditions. Today was really different from other practices, so I hope to improve for the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin qualified fifth after a late crash in Q2, but climbed up to third in the sprint after overtaking Yamaha\u2019s Fabio Quartararo<\/a> and Bezzecchi, who lost time with a mistake on lap six. But by the time the Spaniard had moved into podium position, he had little chance of closing the gap to the front, and he ultimately finished the sprint 3.6s behind Marquez.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the gap between the two Italian brands in the post-race media scrum, Martin said: \u201cWhen I overtook Marco, I was already 2.5 seconds [behind]. So I lost half a second more in 10 laps. So [the deficit is] not that big.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we [hope to] start a bit better tomorrow. Here, it’s difficult to overtake.\u00a0For sure, both bikes are really fast. In Thailand, we were better, and now it seems like they are a bit better.\u00a0So we need to improve a bit for tomorrow because they are a bit faster, and for the moment, over 31 laps, it’s impossible to follow them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jorge <\/p>\n

Jorge Martin, Aprilia Racing Team<\/p>\n

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography \/ LAT Images \/ via Getty Images<\/p>\n

For Brazil, Michelin has brought two stiffer rear tyre casings that are identical to the ones raced in Austria last year, while only the hard rear matches the specification from Thailand – a compound Ducati particularly struggled with.<\/p>\n

For the upcoming rounds, Michelin is expected to revert to the standard tyre constructions on both front and rear. Marquez cautioned against drawing conclusions from a single weekend, pointing to the unique tyre situation in Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot evaluate the level of a rider or the level of the bike in one race,\u201d the Ducati rider declared. \u201cYou need to take five races and then try to understand where we are.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is that only here we changed the casing, the bike is working in a different way, and it’s not the casing that we will have during the [remainder of the] season. So, in Austin, we will have another casing.<\/p>\n

“So, the most important thing for me, for a championship, is to be there [at the front]. And it’s what I try to do. In rainy conditions, be there; damp conditions, be there; new circuits, be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from Brazil GP – Saturday<\/p>\n

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\"Fabio<\/p>\n


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Read Also:<\/p>\n

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Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jorge Martin has conceded that Aprilia is lagging behind Ducati heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix, predicting it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[5743,64,63,269814,269813,5744,275222,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-557563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-aprilia-racing-team","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autu00f3dromo-internacional-ayrton-senna","tag-brazil-gp","tag-jorge-martin","tag-jorge-martin-on-aprilias-brazil-gp-chances-we-are-a-step-away-from-ducati","tag-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557563","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=557563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}