![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
The balance of power has shifted north-east from Borgo Panigale to Noale, home to what has always been Italy\u2019s \u2018other\u2019 MotoGP brand, Aprilia. <\/p>\n
The numbers prove it. <\/p>\n
Ascertaining the best 10 riders of the first half of the 2026 season<\/a> was harder than 12 months ago, primarily because of the rollercoaster ride of Marc Marquez, MotoGP\u2019s sun who everyone else orbits around. <\/p>\n MORE MOTOGP NEWS<\/p>\n MID-SEASON RIDER RANKINGS<\/a> Rising stars, future forces and a defiant champion make our top 10<\/p>\n \u2018BEAT THE BEST RIDER IN HISTORY\u2019<\/a> MotoGP leader identifies tall task, race-winner \u2018a stranger\u2019 at KTM<\/p>\n Marquez\u2019s health, availability, absence and then resurgence has underpinned the narrative, leaving the season delicately poised at its halfway stage with five riders from four teams and two manufacturers within 25 points \u2013 one race win \u2013 of the summit of the standings. <\/p>\n Who wins out from here is the million-dollar question. What\u2019s not for debate is which riders are in a better place at the mid-point of 2026 compared to this time 12 months ago, and which riders would like a two-wheel time machine to rocket back to the good \u2018old\u2019 days of 2025. <\/p>\n In compiling our annual list of MotoGP\u2019s biggest winners and losers year-on-year at the turn for home, it\u2019s not appropriate to consider the biggest winner of all, if only because we didn\u2019t brand him the biggest loser at the same stage last season<\/a>. <\/p>\n After 11 rounds last year, Jorge Martin \u2013 in his maiden season at Aprilia after crossing from Ducati following his world championship win in 2024 \u2013 had competed in just one Grand Prix, which came in Qatar and ended abruptly when he fell in front of Fabio Di Giannantonio\u2019s Ducati and was run into by the blameless Italian, Martin breaking 11 ribs and suffering a punctured lung.<\/p>\n After 11 rounds this year, Martin leads the world championship with 208 points \u2013 208 more than he\u2019d managed at the same stage last year \u2013 which makes comparing this year with the nightmare that preceded it completely useless. <\/p>\n Save for one underlying trend.<\/p>\n MORE MOTOGP NEWS<\/p>\n TALKING POINTS <\/a> Sachsenring king\u2019s crowning glory, five-way title fight tightens, \u2018wheels fall off\u2019 for Aussie<\/p>\n RACE REPORT<\/a> Marquez equals 51-year record with Sachsenring masterclass<\/p>\n It\u2019s telling that, as you compare the points scored by each rider at the halfway stage of last season to this one, every Aprilia rider \u2013 not just Martin \u2013 is better off. Of the nine riders in better shape this year than last, four of them ride Aprilia\u2019s RS-GP benchmark machine.<\/p>\n On the other side of the equation, every Ducati rider besides the metronomically-consistent Di Giannantonio has fewer points this season than last, which explains why Marc Marquez is more a contender this year than title certainty, as he was midway through 2025. <\/p>\n Comparing the stats between seasons of 20 riders \u2013 2026 rookies Toprak Razgatlioglu and Diogo Moreira are excluded from this exercise \u2013 shows that Francesco Bagnaia\u2019s fall from grace in 2025 has steepened this year; the two-time MotoGP champ has 54 fewer points than the 197 he had after 11 rounds last year. <\/p>\n Elsewhere, Pedro Acosta \u2013 set to take Bagnaia\u2019s seat at the factory Ducati team alongside Marc Marquez in 2027<\/a> \u2013 is the only rider able to make a KTM sing, while all three Yamaha returnees are worse-off this year than last, Australia\u2019s Jack Miller backing up the worst season since his 2015 rookie campaign in 2025 with a further points slide in 2026. <\/p>\n Halfway through last year, the Pramac Yamaha rider had 46 points; this year, it\u2019s just 19. Fellow Yamaha riders Fabio Quartararo (32 points worse off) and Alex Rins (20) could sympathise. <\/p>\n None of that sad-trumpet trio made it into our biggest year-on-year losers category, though; here\u2019s who has made the biggest gains (Martin excluded) in 2026 from 2025, and who has fallen well short of what they did last year halfway through this one. <\/p>\n (Note: all stats below are after the first 11 rounds of the 2026 and 2025 seasons)<\/p>\n FIVE BIGGEST WINNERS<\/p>\n +145 POINTS: AI OGURA (APRILIA)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 194, 2nd<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 49, 14th <\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 46, 24%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 10, 20%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 148, 76%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 39, 80% <\/p>\n What a difference a year makes. This time in 2025, Ogura limped to the season\u2019s mid-point still suffering the effects of a right leg injury from a crash at Silverstone in round seven, finding the transition as the reigning Moto2 champ tough as he sat well outside the top 10 in the standings. But the Japanese has proved himself to be a fast learner who methodically chips away at his weaknesses, and scored as many points in the final three rounds before the break in Czechia, the Netherlands<\/a> and Germany (89) as he managed for the entirety of his rookie season. A climb of 12 places in the standings and being considered a legitimate championship chance as a sophomore is the result, and why he sits comfortably atop our \u2018biggest winners\u2019 list.<\/p>\n No rider has improved more than Ogura in 2026, who sits second in the standings at the halfway stage. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n +108: RAUL FERNANDEZ (APRILIA)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 159, 6th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 51, 13th<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 59, 37%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 2, 4%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 100, 63%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 49, 96%<\/p>\n Ordinarily, scoring 108 points more than the equivalent time last year would have you on top of most biggest winners lists and as the number one in your own team, but Trackhouse Aprilia teammate Ogura has Fernandez covered on both counts, even if 2026 is by far the most convincing season of the late-blooming Spaniard\u2019s five-year MotoGP tenure. While he\u2019s fourth of the four Aprilias in the standings, the biggest change year-on-year for the 25-year-old is that his sprints are no longer a lost cause; he barely scored in the short-format races in the first half of 2025, but has already won two<\/a> \u2013 at Mugello and Assen \u2013 in the opening 11 rounds of 2026. A leap in the standings has been a consequence, but a 2027 contract hasn\u2019t as Ogura has undoubtedly wrestled the momentum away from his teammate within Trackhouse. <\/p>\n Bezzecchi crashes out in BRUTAL fashion | 00:43<\/p>\n +56: MARCO BEZZECCHI (APRILIA)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 186, 4th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 130, 6th<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 33, 18%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 35, 27%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 153, 82%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 95, 73%<\/p>\n While recency bias makes it feel that Bezzecchi has done nothing but lose since his win at Mugello in round seven<\/a> \u2013 his fourth Grand Prix victory in the opening seven Sundays \u2013 the first half of 2026 has been significantly better than 2025 for \u2018Bez\u2019, who nobody was talking about as a title contender a year ago despite him being just two spots lower in the championship than at the same point of 2026. Part of that is because of the compressed picture at the sharp end of the standings, and another part is that it\u2019s more believable to think the Bezzecchi of the opening four rounds of 2026 is more real than whatever has happened in the past four, where he\u2019s scored 13 points total. Sprints remain his weakness \u2013 they contribute even less to his overall total than last year \u2013 and will be the first thing pointed to if his title quest comes up short.<\/p>\n Even with his recent slump, Bezzecchi has been one of the big improvers of 2026. (Photo by EVARISTO SA \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n +49: PEDRO ACOSTA (KTM)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 148, 7th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 99, 8th <\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 43, 29%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 17, 17%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 105, 71%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 82, 83% <\/p>\n You\u2019d forgive Acosta if he spent most of his mid-season break on a physio table getting treatment on sore shoulders, as he\u2019s carried KTM once again as he did for much of 2025. The Spaniard is just one of two riders inside the top 10 of the standings not on an Aprilia or Ducati, and he\u2019s more than doubled his points in sprint races over the first half of 2026 relative to 2025, primarily because of his ability to repeatedly out-perform his machinery in qualifying and enhance his reputation as one of the hardest riders to pass once the lights go out. Acosta is only one place higher in the standings than he was this time last year, and while that first Grand Prix win remains frustratingly elusive, he\u2019s working wonders on a bike his stablemates have struggled with. <\/p>\n +42: FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO (DUCATI)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 184, 5th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 142, 4th<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 50, 27%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 50, 35%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 134, 73%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 92, 65% <\/p>\n MotoGP\u2019s Mr Dependable blotted his copybook with a rare crash in the final race before the break in Germany \u2013 his first non-score on a Sunday since Catalunya last year, 17 races previously \u2013 but was a sure thing for this list despite dropping two positions in the race for the title after his Sachsenring spill. \u2018Diggia\u2019 owes his entire points gain year-on-year to Grands Prix, as he\u2019s scored 50 points in the first 11 sprints of the year as he did in 2025. In a year where there\u2019s no runaway leader at the top of the championship like last season, and where consistency looks destined to be as much of a factor as sheer speed, the Italian should see himself stay in this list by season\u2019s end, and be in the championship conversation for much of the final 11 rounds.<\/p>\n FIVE BIGGEST LOSERS<\/p>\n -174: ALEX MARQUEZ (DUCATI)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 87, 9th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 261, 2nd<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 32, 37%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 95, 36%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 55, 63%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 176, 64%<\/p>\n It\u2019s a little unfair to brand a rider who has missed three rounds with injury<\/a> in 2026 as MotoGP\u2019s biggest loser of the season, but that\u2019s what the numbers tell us after the younger Marquez has found the going tougher than 2025, when he was remarkably good in the season\u2019s first half. For context, his 261 points at the halfway stage of last year\u2019s title chase would have easily led the standings in 2026; he was already 83 points behind brother Marc at the same stage, which explains why that stat gets overlooked. The Gresini Ducati rider finished second in nine of the opening 10 sprints last year (and won the other one at Silverstone), and while his percentages of points earned from sprints and Grands Prix have remained similar, there\u2019s just fewer of them year-on-year. In finishing runner-up in last year\u2019s championship, Marquez averaged 21 points per round; that\u2019s down to 10.9 in 2026, explaining how he\u2019s ended up here. <\/p>\n After they owned the first half of 2025, there\u2019s been less to celebrate for the Marquez brothers so far in 2026. (Photo by Ronny HARTMANN \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n -154: MARC MARQUEZ (DUCATI)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 190, 3rd<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 344, 1st<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 73, 38%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 129, 37%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 117, 62%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 215, 63%<\/p>\n You can\u2019t beat near perfection, which is what the reigning world champion was after 11 rounds of 2025, when he\u2019d already won 10 sprints and seven Grands Prix to vacuum up 344 of the available 407 points, making his seventh MotoGP crown a matter of when, not if. The proportion of the 33-year-old\u2019s points from sprints and Grands Prix replicates last year\u2019s championship-clinching formula, and he\u2019s already done the hard yards of dragging himself back<\/a> from 102 points off the championship lead after seven rounds to just 18 after 11 as Bezzecchi has nosedived, Martin has flatlined and Ogura has surged. Even after sitting out the final four rounds of 2025 as he recovered from shoulder surgery, Marquez won last year\u2019s title by 78 points; Aprilia\u2019s ascension and a deeper field of contenders makes that margin unlikely this time, but he\u2019d happily take far fewer points than 2025 if the outcome was the same.<\/p>\n -93: FRANCO MORBIDELLI (DUCATI)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 46, 16th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 139, 5th<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 10, 22%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 37, 27%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 36, 78% <\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 102, 73% <\/p>\n Pour one out for Morbidelli, whose appearance on this list is absolutely no surprise, and absolutely justification for his ninth MotoGP season being his last. Every other Ducati rider \u2013 even Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer, who have each missed three rounds with injury \u2013 sits inside the top 11 of the standings as Morbidelli languishes in 16th, while seven of his paltry total of 10 sprint points came in the rain-affected lottery of Jerez in round four<\/a>, where he splashed his way onto the podium. Apart from that, the 31-year-old has been relatively anonymous, while his 13 total crashes for the season place him third behind Jorge Martin (16) and Joan Mir (15), a list \u2013 like this one \u2013 you don\u2019t want to be near the top of. <\/p>\n -70: JOHANN ZARCO (HONDA)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 34, 17th<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 104, 7th<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 8, 24%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 18, 17%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 26, 76%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 86, 83% <\/p>\n If Alex Marquez\u2019s appearance on this list is a little unfair, Zarco\u2019s is a lot; the Frenchman hasn\u2019t appeared since round six in Catalunya, where he had a horror first-corner crash that he \u2013 and his left knee \u2013 are still counting the cost of. Even before that injury, Zarco\u2019s first half of 2026 \u2013 where he\u2019s averaged 5.7 points per round \u2013 falls well short of what he did in the equivalent period of 2025 (9.5), a figure inflated by his remarkable Grand Prix win at home in Le Mans, and his second place to Bezzecchi next time out at Silverstone. MotoGP\u2019s oldest rider \u2013 Zarco turned 36 last week \u2013 is set to return as soon as Misano in September, won\u2019t need surgery after his Barcelona battering, and is under contract with Honda for next year, so it\u2019s not all bad. This year, though, is a write-off at the halfway point.<\/p>\n Even before his Catalan GP crash, Zarco was struggling to replicate his stunning first half of 2025. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n -59: MAVERICK VINALES (KTM)<\/p>\n 2026 points\/position: 10, 22nd<\/p>\n 2025 points\/position: 69, 11th<\/p>\n 2026 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 0, 0%<\/p>\n 2025 points in sprints\/percentage of total: 21, 30%<\/p>\n 2026 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 10, 100%<\/p>\n 2025 points in Grands Prix\/percentage of total: 48, 70%<\/p>\n Like Alex Marquez, Vinales has missed three rounds this year. Like Marquez, he\u2019s one of our five biggest losers year-on-year. Unlike Marquez \u2013 and Zarco, another injury-affected rider on this list \u2013 Vinales likely won\u2019t be back in 2027, after the left shoulder injury he picked up in a qualifying crash at the Sachsenring last year has lingered through to the German GP one year on, a race where he said he felt like \u201ca stranger\u201d<\/a> in his Tech3 KTM team. Yes, the mercurial Maverick has been riding under physical duress in 2026, but 1.25 points per round when you\u2019re chasing a new contract \u2013 and after you\u2019ve already been through Suzuki, Yamaha and Aprilia to get to KTM \u2013 doesn\u2019t sound like a roadmap to continue. MotoGP will be more dull without him, but it will be without him for the first year of the 850cc era in 2027 after this year\u2019s horror show and his place on this list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember when MotoGP was \u2013 derisively, but accurately \u2013 referred to as the \u2018Ducati Cup\u2019? Ducati do, too.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-815369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815369","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=815369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}