{"id":664574,"date":"2026-05-11T20:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664574\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:40:12","slug":"le-mans-motogp-martin-ascends-marquez-descends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664574\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Mans MotoGP: Martin ascends, M\u00e1rquez descends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jorge Martin<\/a> raced a full 2026-spec Aprilia<\/a> RS-GP for the first time at Le Mans<\/a> and in so doing, became the first rider this season to score maximum Saturday and Sunday points. And he did it both ways \u2014 a mind-boggling first few corners in the sprint had him lead every lap, then he slugged it out in the grand prix, fighting his way through from seventh on lap one.<\/p>\n

No doubt about it, the 2024 MotoGP<\/a> king now ranks as favourite for the 2026 MotoGP championship. Martin raced the first four GPs without Aprilia\u2019s full array of 2026 upgrades because he had missed the first pre-season tests through injury, so he didn\u2019t get to try that hardware and software until the post-Spanish GP Jerez<\/a> tests, where he told us the upgrades were worth \u201ca real two-tenths\u201d, which equates to four or five seconds over race distance.<\/p>\n

Martin has always looked great on the Aprilia, never mind his idiotic panic at the start of last season. Watching him on the RS-GP reminds me of watching a 250cc GP blade runner: head under the bubble, wringing the thing\u2019s neck, extracting every millilitre of performance from that quarter of a litre.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, he had more rear tyre than team-mate Marco Bezzecchi<\/a>, which was impressive, considering he had to pass so many riders, each overtake giving his tyres a temperature spike, while Bezzecchi seemed to have everything under control at the front, managing his tyres and his advantage.<\/p>\n

At one-third distance Martin was almost three seconds down on Bezzecchi, but he was moving relentlessly forward, taking Ai Ogura<\/a>, Fabio Quartararo<\/a>, Fabio Di Giannantonio<\/a> and Pedro Acosta<\/a> on his way to second place, every overtake beautifully administered, though he had to have two stabs at Di Giannantonio.<\/p>\n

When he took second from Acosta on lap 18 of 27, he had 10 laps to consume Bezzecchi\u2019s 1.6-second lead and he did so effortlessly, taking the world championship leader at Turn 3 with three laps to go.<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-10-at-18.52.44.jpeg.webp\"<\/p>\n

Aprilia\u2019s third one-two from the first five GPs \u2013 Martin in front for the first time \u2013 makes the Noale factory clear favourite for the riders\u2019 and constructors\u2019 championships<\/p>\n

His only issue? His RS-GP was getting a bit too lively when he was in the wake of rival machines, but that didn\u2019t stop him setting up most of his moves through the super-fast Turn 2, then diving past on the inside into Turn 3. We shouldn\u2019t forget, however, his awesome sprint start, which had him take the lead by riding round the outside of Bezzecchi at the same corner.<\/p>\n

There are still 17 grands prix to go, so anything can happen, but right now Martin looks unstoppable: he has the talent, the strength and the title-winning experience \u2013 Moto3 in 2018, MotoGP in 2024.<\/p>\n

What will happen if the title battle becomes an in-house factory Aprilia duel? Bezzecchi is tougher than his carefree character might suggest, but there is something of the cage-fighter in Martin that will surely give him the edge if things get nasty. MotoGP\u2019s last in-house title duel? Valentino Rossi<\/a> and Jorge Lorenzo<\/a> in 2015.<\/p>\n

Ai Ogura made it an all-Aprilia MotoGP podium for the first time in history, a testament to the Noale factory, which began its transformation from loser to winner in 2019. That year, Piaggio CEO Roberto Colaninno faced a stark choice \u2013 either admit defeat with the under-performing RS-GP and quit the championship, or invest.<\/p>\n

Luckily for MotoGP, he chose the latter option. That summer, the two most crucial decisions in the RS-GP\u2019s journey from grid filler to dominator were taken: hire Massimo Rivola from Ferrari<\/a>\u2018s Formula 1<\/a> project to bring an F1 mindset to MotoGP and replace the RS-GP\u2019s troublesome 72-degree V4 engine with a 90-degree V4.<\/p>\n

Ogura\u2019s third place at Le Mans was his first MotoGP podium and the first by a Japanese riding a non-Japanese motorcycle since Tetsuya Harada took third place in the 1999 French and British GPs, also on an Aprilia, the marque\u2019s original MotoGP bike, the RSW500 two-stroke.<\/p>\n

Aprilia is currently dominant and making Ducati look second rate. But is the difference really as big as many seem to think?<\/p>\n

\"Marco<\/p>\n

Aprilia\u2019s first MotoGP podium lockout \u2013 Bezzecchi, Martin and Ogura \u2013 was its first in almost three decades in the championship<\/p>\n

\n Michelin\n <\/p>\n

No, it isn\u2019t. Factory rider Pecco Bagnaia had a great weekend until a brake problem caused him to tuck the front just after half distance, while running second to Bezzecchi. On Saturday he followed pole position with a strong ride to second in the sprint, 1.1 seconds behind Martin. He also set the fastest lap on Sunday and would probably have made the podium if the same brake problem that had him retire at Jerez hadn\u2019t caused him to crash.<\/p>\n

VR46 rider Di Giannantonio was therefore Ducati\u2019s top finisher in fourth, 2.8 seconds behind Martin, a difference of a tenth of a second a lap.<\/p>\n

Ducati was already in this situation last year. If Marc M\u00e1rquez<\/a> hadn\u2019t been around, Bagnaia would\u2019ve been the brand\u2019s best factory rider in fourth overall, behind the KTM<\/a> of Pedro Acosta, the Aprilia of Bezzecchi and the GP24 of Alex M\u00e1rquez.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little doubt that the GP26 is a better motorcycle than the GP25. When the bike is right, Bagnaia says his feeling is pretty much back to where it was in 2024, when he fought a great battle for the title with fellow GP24 rider Martin.<\/p>\n

On Saturday at Le Mans, MotoGP got to see the best and the worst of Marc M\u00e1rquez. Two weeks earlier at Jerez, he had wondered aloud if he would ever be able to dance with a motorcycle again<\/a>, following his latest right shoulder injury, sustained at Mandalika<\/a> last October.<\/p>\n

The seven-time MotoGP king\u2019s Q1 lap at Le Mans proved he hasn\u2019t lost any of his skills, or the will to use them, when that much-mangled shoulder allows him.<\/p>\n

M\u00e1rquez\u2019s fastest qualifying lap was a massive 0.346 seconds better than Bagnaia\u2019s Q2 pole-position lap and his advantage over his team-mate was bigger than Bagnaia\u2019s advantage over the entire top ten in Q2: 0.297 seconds.<\/p>\n

This was the first 1min 29.288sec lap of M\u00e1rquez magic we had seen in eight months, since last September at Misano<\/a>, where he beat Bezzecchi in an epic duel. This was the M\u00e1rquez we know so well, doing things that leave his rivals and engineers slack-jawed in admiration \u2013 how the hell did he do that?<\/p>\n

\"Bezzecchi<\/p>\n

Bezzecchi leads through Turn 1, Martin is about to start moving forward from seventh<\/p>\n

\n Aprilia\n <\/p>\n

That whole lap sizzled, but it was his Turn 8, the tricky downhill double-right before the back straight, that really burned. He had the rear end of his Ducati kicking this way and that as he hit the brakes, the front wheel momentarily looking left as he flicked into the turn, the front tucking again as his right knee skimmed the road. And he nailed both apexes anyway.<\/p>\n

This lap wasn\u2019t quite as remarkable as his 2015 pole lap at COTA<\/a>, when he abandoned his stricken number-one Honda<\/a> on the start\/finish, leapt the pitwall and sprinted to his second bike, with just enough time to do one flying lap. Factory Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso<\/a> was behind him throughout that lap, spellbound by what he was witnessing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to follow him to learn the line, to see the details and learn some secrets, but he made so many mistakes\u2026 and he still made the lap time!\u201d said the Italian later that day.<\/p>\n

If M\u00e1rquez\u2019s Le Mans Q1 lap reminded us of him at his best, what happened moments later told us lots about his current reality. As soon as he passed the finish line, he pulled across the track and braked to little more than walking speed. This wasn\u2019t just getting out of the way; it was more than that. This suggested that when his right shoulder feels right, he can ask everything from it, but for no more than roughly a minute and a half.<\/p>\n

Four hours later in the sprint, he was second into the first corner, fifth out of the third and then had Pedro Acosta and Joan Mir<\/a> come past. Once again he was walking wounded, unable to fight back.<\/p>\n

On the penultimate lap, things got worse. M\u00e1rquez was a fraction wide into the final double right, his rear tyre kicking sideways once, then twice, with such violence that bike and rider ended up on the Le Mans 24-hour car circuit.<\/p>\n

But as he flew upside down towards another screaming collision with Mother Earth, perhaps he was thinking that things aren\u2019t quite as bad as they might look to the rest of us because we didn\u2019t know what M\u00e1rquez knew.<\/p>\n

\"Tetsuya<\/p>\n

Tetsuya Harada scored Aprilia\u2019s first MotoGP podium, aboard the RSW500 two-stroke twin at the 1999 French GP<\/p>\n

What the rest of us knew was that his right shoulder wasn\u2019t getting better the way it should\u2019ve been getting better. It seemed no stronger at Le Mans, nearly seven months after his post-Mandalika surgery, than it had been during the season-opening Thai GP. This suggested all was not well, which posed this question: Is the shoulder finished, or does it need further surgery?<\/p>\n

What M\u00e1rquez knew was that the shoulder did need more surgery, which was planned to take place after this weekend\u2019s Catalan GP. That\u2019s one reason he didn\u2019t fight so hard during the sprint.<\/p>\n

During the Jerez weekend, he had indeed realised that something wasn\u2019t right with the shoulder, which has undergone numerous surgeries, including a full rebuild following the 2019 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to see my doctors and they found that everything was fine, but that the infamous broken screw [a remnant of the 2019 rebuild, which surgeons spotted during his post-Mandalika surgery] was in a different position.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very strange feeling, because at home I felt fine, and nothing happened when I rode a motocross bike, but when I came here, it prevented me from riding, because it was touching the radial nerve. That\u2019s what causes me to make mistakes, be inconsistent and have unexpected crashes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the nerve issue \u2013 a sudden twitch \u2013 played a part in the crash. The radial nerve is 100% vital to a motorcycle racer, because it controls muscle movement and provides feeling in the arm and hand. Without it, you are no longer a motorcycle racer. Four-time World Superbike champion Carl Fogarty is one of many racers whose careers have been terminated by a damaged radial nerve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jorge Martin raced a full 2026-spec Aprilia RS-GP for the first time at Le Mans and in so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[320930,64,63,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-664574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-2026-french-gp","tag-au","tag-australia","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\/664574","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=664574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}