Marc Marquez wins at Aragon: only 19 points behind Martin

• Marc Marquez celebrates his eighth MotoGP win at Aragon and his fourth victory of the season
• Pedro Acosta takes second place on the KTM, around 23 seconds clear of the next riders on the same brand
• Jorge Martin leads the championship on 256 points ahead of Marquez (237) and Marco Bezzecchi (232)

The MotoGP round at Aragon 2026 has tightened the title fight noticeably in the closing stage of the season. Marc Marquez won Sunday’s 23-lap race by 1.8 seconds from Pedro Acosta, while Marco Bezzecchi crossed the line third, 3.6 seconds behind the winner. A crowd of 51,181 watched from the grandstands, and with asphalt temperatures around 50 degrees every rider started on Michelin medium tyres front and rear. That the winner very nearly made a costly mistake only became clear after the flag.

What went wrong at the start for Marc Marquez?

Marc Marquez had forgotten to deactivate the rear ride-height device on his Ducati. The bike stayed lowered at the back, he lost a lot of speed through turns two and three and dropped from first to third.

The opening moments initially followed Saturday’s script. Marquez outbraked pole-sitter Bezzecchi on the inside at turn one, and then it fell apart. “That was a big mistake on my part,” he said on the MotoGP show After the Flag. “I forgot that I still had to deactivate the rear ride-height device. I activated it on the back straight during the warm-up lap, and then you are supposed to deactivate it again for the start. I simply forgot.”

Technically it is easy to explain. Every MotoGP bike is lowered at the rear for the start; only the use of such systems at the front was banned a few weeks ago. The rear device normally releases itself at the next hard braking point. Because Marquez was fully focused on Bezzecchi into turn one and did not brake hard enough, the system stayed engaged. It only released at turn five. Until then sparks were flying under the rear of the bike, and Bezzecchi as well as a fast-starting Jorge Martin went through. Alex Marquez also lost positions because he missed third gear in the confusion.

Marquez himself described it as a scare. “Coming out of turn one I reminded myself that today was not the day to crash. After that I just tried not to lose too many positions and to rebuild my race.”

How did Marquez take the lead back?

Marquez worked his way forward in two steps. He picked off Martin on lap two, and on lap six he got the better of Bezzecchi after a high-speed duel down the back straight.

The decisive move came at turn 15. Both riders lost drive on the exit, then ran side by side, bar to bar, down the following long straight and touched lightly. Bezzecchi described the moment like this: “I could already hear Marc’s bike behind me before turn 15. Then we fought on the straight, the slipstream worked at times and then dropped away again. But Marc was unbeatable today with his experience and also his speed here.”

A phase of stalemate followed. On lap eleven Marquez and Acosta set exactly the same time of 1:47.169. Between laps 13 and 15 Marquez then strung together three laps in the 1:46 bracket and pulled clear. His own explanation sounded matter-of-fact: “Most of the time I was just managing the tyres. I had planned that I could make another step ten laps from the end if I was in the lead.” A moment of overbraking at turn one on lap 18 changed nothing about the outcome.

Why was Pedro Acosta’s overtake so special?

Acosta used the battle ahead of him and went around the outside of Bezzecchi while the Italian was hemmed in on the dirty inside line. The move at the penultimate corner earned him second place, which he held to the flag.

For spectators the move looked spectacular; for the rider himself it did not. “At the end, they were both on the left and I was a bit with the slipstream, and I just went to the right,” Acosta said in the press conference. He added: “It was an ‘easy move’, I would say, for the speed that I was coming.”

Acosta realised early that more was not on the cards. He had noticed that Marquez looked very relaxed from behind and therefore expected the Ducati rider to have something left towards the end. In front of a Spanish crowd he still wanted to try: “In front of the Spanish fans I was happy to give it a go. It looks like we are improving across the weekend. It has been a long road to get this podium. Now it is time to enjoy it.”

What second place means for KTM

The context comes from a look at the rest of the brand. Enea Bastianini and Brad Binder finished eighth and tenth, around 23 seconds behind Acosta. For KTM it was also the result of a weekend in which three of the brand’s bikes made the top ten. According to sources within the paddock, KTM had previously been given the green light to open up and revise its engines. How solid the upward trend really is cannot be judged after a single race, however.

Motorsport director Pit Beirer stayed cautious on ServusTV: “From second place in a race like that you obviously start to imagine that the next step will come at some point. But we should not get carried away now and should first be glad to have a floor under us again and to be back on the podium. I am simply happy and do not want to talk about winning yet.” Aleix Espargaro, who watched the race on television as Honda’s test rider, wrote on social media: “Pedro Acosta is working magic. You have no idea what level he is riding at with the bike he has.”

With Marquez, Acosta and Bezzecchi, three riders from three different manufacturers shared the podium together for the first time this season.

Who retired at Aragon?

Four riders failed to reach the finish: Francesco Bagnaia, Franco Morbidelli, Raul Fernandez and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Bagnaia crashed out of seventh, and shortly afterwards Morbidelli went down as well. Raul Fernandez parked his Aprilia in the pits. He did not want to comment on the cause and only said: “That is part of motorsport, it can happen.” From the pit box and from one of the series’ pit reporters it was reported that a gearbox problem had forced him to retire. Razgatlioglu crashed three laps from the end at turn twelve while running 15th. The rookie later complained of neck pain and was not available for interviews.

How did the midfield unfold?

Alex Marquez finished fourth and Jorge Martin fifth. Both rode largely on their own after the opening phase.

Alex Marquez partly blamed his poor start on the situation in front of him, but also admitted a mistake of his own: “I did not get third gear, and when I came off the throttle two or three riders passed me, but that is racing.” A podium had been out of reach anyway, he said, because Marc and Pedro simply had more to offer that day. Martin drew a sober conclusion: “Today the top five was the maximum and I am satisfied that I took that away with me.”

Behind them Fermin Aldeguer took sixth on his comeback, with Fabio Di Giannantonio seventh. A long duel developed over eighth place, which Enea Bastianini only won on the final lap against rookie Diogo Moreira. Moreira was the leading Honda rider in ninth and kept a whole group behind him for long stretches. Brad Binder completed the top ten. Jack Miller was the best Yamaha rider in eleventh, followed into the points by Joan Mir, Alex Rins, Luca Marini and Johann Zarco. Zarco scored a point on his first Grand Prix back after his injury lay-off, despite having to serve two long-lap penalties for the start crash at Barcelona.

The top ten ultimately consisted of four Ducatis, three KTMs, two Aprilias and one Honda. Yamaha was not represented.

Why did Fabio Quartararo finish last?

Quartararo lost around 15 seconds as early as lap two and crossed the line last, 51 seconds down.

The Frenchman described a chain reaction: “Binder and Marini passed me on the back straight. I was then in their slipstream and they braked much earlier than I had expected. My rear locked up and I ran wide completely. Then I was behind Toprak and locked the front. I ran wide again and lost several seconds. After that everything simply locked up and I ended up in the gravel.” ServusTV pundit Alex Hofmann saw more than a technical issue in that and, pointing to 18th place behind stand-in rider Lorenzo Savadori, spoke of a low point in motivation. Three other Yamaha riders scored points or were inside the top 15 at the moment they dropped out.

The difficult spell also continues for Francesco Bagnaia. “For me the lack of rear grip is simply too much. The reality is that I have zero grip. Absolutely zero grip. After five laps I already went for the lower power setting because the rear tyre was completely finished even though I had not been pushing,” he said. He has come away from the last two Grands Prix without a single point.

Where does the title fight stand after the race?

Jorge Martin leads the world championship on 256 points, Marc Marquez follows on 237 and Marco Bezzecchi lies third on 232.

Marquez cut his deficit from 40 to 19 points within 24 hours by winning both the sprint and the Grand Prix. It is striking that the top three in the standings scored almost identically over the last two Grand Prix weekends: Martin collected 48 points, Marquez 47 and Bezzecchi 46. Behind them come Fabio Di Giannantonio on 208 points and the injured Ai Ogura on 203. Acosta moved back up to sixth on 189 points, passing Raul Fernandez (186). Bagnaia sits on 143. In the team standings Aprilia Racing leads on 488 points ahead of Trackhouse (389) and the Ducati Lenovo Team (380).

Marquez set out a clear target for the rest of the season: “If we want even a small chance of fighting for the title, we cannot lose points at circuits that suit us. We managed that this weekend.” He expects Martin and Bezzecchi to be very fast in the final stretch of the year.

What does the win mean for the record books?

It was Marc Marquez’s 77th MotoGP victory. That makes him the outright record winner of the MotoGP era, moving ahead of Valentino Rossi, who took 76 wins in the class.

For the premier class as a whole that is not yet the case. Rossi also won 13 races in the 500cc days, taking his combined tally to 89 victories. At Aragon it was also Marquez’s eighth MotoGP win at the venue and his fourth of the season. After the race he celebrated with the fans in front of the grandstand carrying his number 93.

How does the season continue?

The next Grand Prix takes place in two weeks at Misano. Acosta said he wants to step it up again there and named Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia as circuits that normally suit him for the rest of the season. He is also hoping for wet races to be competitive elsewhere. Marquez expects Misano to favour the two factory Aprilia riders.

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