It\u2019s been a tough start to the 2026 MotoGP season for the Ducati Lenovo Team, and after a brutal end to 2025 the team is putting up the kind of numbers it would rather stayed in the past.<\/p>\n
Coming into the weekend, Ducati Lenovo Team<\/a> was on an eight-race streak without a win or podium, going back to the Japanese Grand Prix of 2025.<\/p>\n That weekend, of course, was about as good as it gets for a MotoGP<\/a> team: Marc Marquez<\/a> won the riders\u2019 title, and Francesco Bagnaia completed the pole-Sprint-grand prix treble.<\/p>\n A week later is when it started to fall apart, though, Bagnaia crashing out of last in the Indonesian Grand Prix only a few laps after Marquez had been taken out by Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> on the first lap, breaking his collarbone and sustaining additional shoulder injuries.<\/p>\n Marquez missed the final five races of last season and Bagnaia retired from them all anyway, although he did win the Sprint at Sepang \u2013 even though his ride height device broke. So, no silverware for the factory team at the end of last year.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Beginning 2026, Marquez has won two Sprints, but has now retired from two of four grands prix. He was beaten straight-up by Fabio Di Giannantonio<\/a> to third in Brazil, and cost himself a shot at the podium in Texas for his crash with Di Giannantonio in the Sprint.<\/p>\n For Bagnaia, the pace hasn\u2019t been there to be on the podium at all, but he has also retired in two races: Spain and Brazil.<\/p>\n The four races at the start of this year add to the five races at the end of last year to leave Ducati Lenovo Team on a nine-race podium drought. It means an extension of the streak that was already the team\u2019s longest since it went between Aragon 2012 and Qatar 2014 without a rostrum. Of course, the team is a long way off matching that 24-race run, but it is a statistic that is indicative of, firstly, the difficult moment the team is currently facing, but also the scale of its success in the intervening period.<\/p>\n Ducati \u2013 the manufacturer \u2013 also came into this weekend having not won in five races. A sixth race without a win in Jerez would have been the brand\u2019s longest winless drought since it went eight races without a victory between 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n Ironically it was Jack Miller who brought that victory drought to an end at Jerez in 2021, and this time it was Alex Marquez<\/a> \u2013 of Gresini Racing<\/a> \u2013 that ended the streak at the Andalusian circuit.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Heading to Le Mans in two weeks, Bagnaia\u2019s title hopes aren\u2019t even worth considering given his lack of pace this year. For Marquez, though, he\u2019s now 44 points behind Bezzecchi at the top of the championship.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a tough start to the 2026 MotoGP season for the Ducati Lenovo Team, and after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,8456,7607,4280,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-632720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ducati-lenovo-team","tag-francesco-bagnaia","tag-marc-marquez","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632720","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=632720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}