{"id":598092,"date":"2026-04-10T15:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598092\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:13:09","slug":"mick-doohan-what-i-dont-understand-is-ducati-amid-aprilia-motogp-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598092\/","title":{"rendered":"Mick Doohan: \u201cWhat I don\u2019t understand is Ducati\u201d amid Aprilia MotoGP dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan says it is still too early to draw conclusions about the 2026 MotoGP title fight but admits Ducati\u2019s form is difficult to decipher.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/ducati-lenovo-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ducati,<\/a> which has won the last four riders\u2019 titles, is yet to win a grand prix this season, with its last victory coming at the hands of Alex Marquez in Malaysia last October.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, Aprilia\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/995158\/marco-bezzecchi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> has won all five grands prix since and leads the 2026 world championship, despite crashing out of two Sprint races.<\/p>\n<p>Team-mate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/973236\/jorge-martin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jorge Martin<\/a> has added a Sprint win and multiple podiums, while Raul Fernandez has also put his Trackhouse Aprilia into the top three.<\/p>\n<p>Ducati\u2019s only victory so far this season is a Sprint win for reigning champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1654\/marc-marquez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Marquez<\/a> in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>But Marquez, still recovering from shoulder surgery, is yet to finish on the grand prix podium, losing further points due to a wheel rim failure in Buriram and a Sprint crash at COTA, where he also took out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/995149\/fabio-di-giannantonio\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fabio di Giannantonio<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The VR46 rider is currently the leading Ducati rider in the standings, in fourth place, behind KTM\u2019s Pedro Acosta and the two Aprilias.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Ducati is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/feature\/1092839\/1\/biggest-winners-and-losers-motogp-2026s-first-three-rounds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">down 42 points in the constructors&#8217; standings <\/a>relative to the same time last year, with Aprilia up by 68.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it&#8217;s still too early to talk about this season,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1707\/mick-doohan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Doohan<\/a> told Marca.com. \u201cWe&#8217;ll be back in Europe soon. We&#8217;ll see what happens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I don&#8217;t understand is Ducati. I&#8217;m not sure if Aprilia took a big step forward or if Ducati lost ground. And [if so], why did they lose ground?<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it seems that the VR46 satellite team are performing better than the factory Ducati bikes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf that&#8217;s the case, who has been leading the development? Have they been going in the right direction?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I don&#8217;t know if Aprilia took a big step forward or Ducati took a step back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/gng_1304162_hires.jpg\"   type=\"image\/jpeg\" alt=\"Jorge Martin with Nicky Hayden flag, 2026 US MotoGP.\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.59\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Jorge Martin with Nicky Hayden flag, 2026 US MotoGP.<\/p>\n<p> \u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n<p>While Bezzecchi has continued his strong end to last season, team-mate Martin has emerged as one of the early surprises.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Injured for much of last season, then sidelined for part of 2026 pre-season testing, the 2024 world champion has finished on the rostrum in the last four races (including Sprints).<\/p>\n<p>Martin returns to Europe just four points behind Bezzecchi, his confidence and knowledge of the RS-GP improving with each round.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBezzecchi has done an incredible job with that bike; he&#8217;s very strong over a single lap and in race distance. The Aprilia looks very strong,\u201d Doohan said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs for Martin, first of all, I like the guy. He&#8217;s down-to-earth, a normal human being, and extremely fast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw that when he won the world championship with a Ducati at Pramac.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, he was injured a lot last year. He went through some very tough times with Aprilia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, he&#8217;s had a good start. He&#8217;s second in the World Championship. Everything is going great for him&#8230; except he needs to practice his victory lap celebrations!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin crashed during a wheelie while celebrating his debut Aprilia win in the COTA Sprint.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan says it is still too early to draw conclusions about the 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[18009,10669,64,63,5744,10732,30388,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-598092","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-jorge-martin","13":"tag-marco-bezzecchi","14":"tag-mick-doohan","15":"tag-motor","16":"tag-motor-sports","17":"tag-motosport","18":"tag-motosports","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598092","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=598092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}