{"id":591893,"date":"2026-04-07T19:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591893\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T19:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:53:10","slug":"ducati-will-return-to-normal-claim-made-for-upcoming-jerez-motogp-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591893\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDucati will return to normal\u201d claim made for upcoming Jerez MotoGP round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aprilia\u2019s Jorge Martin believes \u201ceverything will return to normal\u201d when MotoGP returns to Europe for the Spanish Grand Prix, where he expects Ducati to bounce back.<\/p>\n

The start to the 2026 MotoGP campaign has proven to be difficult for Ducati<\/a>, who appears to be a step behind the dominant Aprilia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Though winning the sprint in Brazil and finishing on the podium in the other two half-distance races run so far, Ducati has just one grand prix podium to its credit from the first three rounds.<\/p>\n

That was courtesy of VR46\u2019s Fabio Di Giannantonio in Brazil, while reigning world champion Marc Marquez has yet to breach the top three on a Sunday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a far cry from this time 12 months ago, when Ducati looked dominant, sweeping to wins in all three of the first sprints and grands prix.<\/p>\n

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Aprilia, though largely struggling in sprints, save for Jorge Martin<\/a>\u2019s COTA win, has been peerless on Sundays, with Marco Bezzecchi completing a hat-trick across Thailand, Brazil and the US.<\/p>\n

But 2024 world champion Jorge Martin believes the Spanish Grand Prix coming up at the end of the month will see something of a reset.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Jerez, everything will return to normal,\u201d he told DAZN, before warning, \u201cDucati will return to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducati general manager Gigi Dall\u2019Igna branded the US Grand Prix as a \u201cwake-up call\u201d for the Italian manufacturer.<\/p>\n

\"Jorge <\/p>\n

Jorge Martin, Aprilia Racing, 2026 US MotoGP<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n

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Jorge Martin: \u2018We weren\u2019t ready\u2019 for strong start to 2026<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s return to form after an injury-plagued 2025 has been one of the big surprises of the opening three rounds to the new campaign, not least because he missed the first pre-season test.<\/p>\n

Starting the season with a fourth-place finish in Thailand, Martin returned to the podium for the first time since 2024 in Brazil, before capitalising on a contra-strategy in the COTA sprint to secure victory.<\/p>\n

He then went on to finish second in the grand prix, and is now just four points down on championship-leading team-mate Bezzecchi.<\/p>\n

In the same DAZN interview, Martin said that he was trying to lower his expectations coming into the Austin weekend after his Brazil podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing into Austin, the truth is I didn\u2019t expect this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI tried to lower my expectations a bit. We weren\u2019t ready. [The plan was] get through two or three races flying under the radar, keep scoring points; fifth, eighth, whatever comes will be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe end of the season is usually my time, but I don\u2019t want to rush things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin is due to leave Aprilia at the end of the season, having reportedly signed with Yamaha ahead of the new campaign getting underway.<\/p>\n

His place at Aprilia is set to be taken by Pecco Bagnaia.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aprilia\u2019s Jorge Martin believes \u201ceverything will return to normal\u201d when MotoGP returns to Europe for the Spanish Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,8456,5744,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-591893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ducati-lenovo-team","11":"tag-jorge-martin","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591893","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=591893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}