Aprilia apologises to Martin, Marquez reveals his tactics

• Aprilia racing boss Massimo Rivola admits the team made a serious mistake with Jorge Martin’s tyre pressure in the Sprint
• Marc Marquez says he had no tyre pressure problem in the race and that waving Pedro Acosta through was strategy
• Since Mandalika, riders face a fine of 5,000 euros (approx. 5,600 US dollars) if they leave the Hero Walk with the fans too early

The result of the Indonesian Grand Prix is quickly told: Marco Bezzecchi won ahead of Raul Fernandez, Jorge Martin and Ai Ogura, giving Aprilia the top four places in a MotoGP race for the first time. Many questions, however, were only answered after the chequered flag. In the media sessions, details came to light that make the weekend at the Pertamina Mandalika International Circuit look different. Some scenes that seemed puzzling during the race have now been explained. Other issues, such as possible team orders at Aprilia or a new fine for riders, will accompany the remaining five races of the 2026 MotoGP season.

Why did Jorge Martin have to back off in the Sprint?

Jorge Martin lost the Sprint win because his front tyre pressure was too low, and the team is now taking responsibility for that. In the manufacturer’s press release, Aprilia racing boss Massimo Rivola speaks of a serious mistake with his rider’s tyre pressure.

Rivola describes the weekend as a rollercoaster. Saturday began in the best possible way with Raul Fernandez’s pole position. Then the Sprint was ruined by a mistake at Turn 1 and by Martin’s tyre pressure. In his words, there was “a serious error over Jorge’s front tyre pressure, for which we owe him an apology”.

By way of explanation: MotoGP has a rule on minimum front tyre pressure. A rider who is alone at the front gets no warm air from a rider ahead, and the pressure drops. Martin unexpectedly led the Sprint on his own after Bezzecchi and Fernandez crashed at the first corner. To avoid risking a penalty, he had to ease off.

Martin himself is taking it calmly. He says he missed a big chance to win the Sprint. “That’s racing. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” With third place in Sunday’s race, he says he achieved the maximum. Bezzecchi and Fernandez were a little faster all weekend.

Did Marc Marquez have tyre pressure problems in the race?

Not according to him. Marc Marquez explains that only his rear tyre dropped off heavily. “My rear tyre dropped off a lot, but the front was perfect,” the Ducati rider said after the race.

This contradicts the impression created during the race. From lap 13, Marquez and Pedro Acosta swapped places several times without really fighting each other. Acosta let Marquez through before Turn 13, having overtaken him hard at Turn 10 six laps earlier. Two laps later, Marquez deliberately ran wide at Turn 10 and let Acosta back past. Only from lap 20 did the two really fight each other again.

For Marquez, this was not forced on him but planned. “That was my strategy,” he says. There were still twelve laps to go and he did not want to take any risks. He sensed that Acosta and Ogura were faster anyway and would overtake him. “Today I had more to lose than to gain.” The only rider he really wanted to fight was Fabio Di Giannantonio, because they both ride the same bike.

Marquez also talks about why he lost so much time at Turn 10. He did not brake late there because he lacked confidence. He managed it on individual laps in practice, but not in the race. He was only able to match Martin’s pace for about ten laps, just as in the Sprint.

Acosta sees it differently. He believes Marquez had the same problem as he did, because the Ducati rider also let him by at times. In the end, there are two points of view: Acosta was demonstrably struggling with tyre pressure, while Marquez describes his behaviour as deliberate tactics.

What is Pedro Acosta demanding on the MotoGP tyre pressure rule?

Pedro Acosta wants the minimum pressure to be checked only on the grid before the start. After that, tyre pressure should no longer play any role in the race.

The KTM rider is annoyed, because the back-and-forth cost him a lot of time. At the start of lap 13 he was in third place, just two seconds behind Martin. By the last swap of places with Marquez, the gap had grown to six seconds. Ai Ogura closed in and overtook both of them in the final laps. “That cost me an enormous amount of time and took away my chance of finishing in the top four today,” says Acosta.

Asked whether riding to manage tyre pressure feels stupid, he replied curtly: “Yes, we look like donkeys!” He understands that a minimum pressure is needed. But in a race nobody can predict what will happen, and nobody can control what the other riders do. As an example, he cites Martin, who certainly did not expect to be riding without anyone in front of him in the Sprint.

The dispute is not entirely new. Back at the end of May, Joan Mir was retrospectively stripped of his podium at the Catalan Grand Prix because his tyre pressure was 0.004 bar below the minimum. Deliberately dropping back behind a rival to raise the pressure again in their warm slipstream has happened repeatedly over the past three years.

Despite his frustration, Acosta was satisfied with fifth place as the best rider behind the four Aprilias. Compared with the Sprint, the team got the vibration on the bike, known in technical jargon as chattering, under control. In the second sector, however, he continued to struggle. KTM team manager Aki Ajo praised how Acosta managed the race despite the tyre pressure situation. In the championship, Acosta slipped to fifth with 258 points, one point behind Ogura.

What is behind MotoGP’s new 5,000-euro fine?

MotoGP wants to penalise riders who spend too little time with the fans. Anyone who leaves the so-called Hero Walk too early is to pay 5,000 euros (approx. 5,600 US dollars) for a first offence.

The Hero Walk is a meet-and-greet with fans who pay for it. It takes place on Sunday morning after the riders’ parade and before the Moto3 race. The riders sign autographs and pose for photos. The session lasts 20 minutes, at least 10 of which are to be mandatory. According to the notice that the MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group reportedly sent to the teams by email on Saturday, the rule already applied from Sunday in Mandalika. The fine is set to increase for repeat offences. Sporting penalties are also reportedly possible, though exactly which ones is still unclear. Some riders are said to have already failed to stay the ten minutes in Mandalika.

Pedro Acosta clearly rejects the fine. You cannot force a rider to do something without knowing his personal situation, he says. As an example, he cites Raul Fernandez, who has more important things to deal with given his broken fingers. He also explicitly backed Marc Marquez, who sent a lookalike to a karting appointment in Japan.

Marquez also thinks little of the fine. The riders themselves want MotoGP to grow, he says. But there are other ways than putting even more pressure on the riders. Between sponsor appointments, meetings, warm-up and the Hero Walk, there is hardly any time left on Sunday, and next year the obligations will increase further. His verdict: “The show is on the track, not off it.”

Acosta goes even further. Riders’ careers are getting shorter and shorter because of the stress, he warns. Some legends leave the paddock and do not want to come back at all. Nevertheless, he does not expect a joint revolt by the riders. Everyone looks after their own interests, and the teams and manufacturers do the same.

How was Raul Fernandez able to ride with two broken fingers?

Raul Fernandez rode to second place with an injection, painkillers and special taping. The idea came from his physiotherapists and the doctors at the MotoGP clinic.

On Sunday morning, Fernandez received an injection to drain fluid from the injured finger. He then took tablets and felt better. His right index finger and little finger were broken. His support staff came up with the idea of taping his hand so that it rested steadily on the handlebar and he only had to move one finger to brake. Fernandez particularly praised the team around Dr Angel Charte, MotoGP’s medical director. Without them, he says, he might not have been able to start at all.

It was still not easy. “After 13 or 14 laps I was completely destroyed,” says the 25-year-old from Madrid. The key was not to think about the pain. When a commentator called him a superhero afterwards, Fernandez waved it off: he is just a normal person who loves racing in MotoGP.

His fellow Aprilia riders paid their respects. Bezzecchi called his pace in that condition very impressive, saying Fernandez may have been the fastest all weekend. Martin was impressed that Fernandez had to brake with a different finger and still led so many laps. After the row over the collision in the Sprint, Bezzecchi and Fernandez were at least polite to each other after the race.

Are there now team orders at Aprilia?

Not yet. For now, the riders are free to race each other, but there is said to be an internal discussion about rules on how they deal with each other.

Technical director Fabiano Sterlacchini says Aprilia will have to talk about a kind of guideline to avoid situations like the collision in the Sprint. However, such incidents cannot be prevented entirely, even if roles and risks are clearly defined in advance. The numbers show how costly Saturday was: Martin was unable to extend his lead over Marquez despite the superior bike, and Bezzecchi, despite winning, only gained three points on the two of them. “We threw points away,” says Rivola. Bezzecchi agrees and calls the weekend more of a loss than a win.

Ducati firmly expects team orders. Team manager Davide Tardozzi says Aprilia has every right to give its riders instructions, and he has no doubt that this will happen sooner or later. “Io lo farei”, he says, meaning “I would do it.” Ducati has always given its satellite riders everything in the past, even when fighting them for the title. Aprilia, however, is fighting against another manufacturer.

How is Ducati reacting to Aprilia’s superiority?

Ducati openly admits that Aprilia was faster in Mandalika than it had hoped. Davide Tardozzi nevertheless calls the bare result a success for Ducati. With 185 points still available, Marquez is just two points behind Martin.

What worries him is the next race at Phillip Island. The fast, long corners there could suit the Aprilia at high lean angles, Tardozzi believes. If Ducati holds its own there, the championship is achievable in his view. Marquez sees it similarly. On tracks with fast corners and high average speeds, such as Assen and Silverstone, the four Aprilias were almost always at the front. Mandalika also exposes many of his own weaknesses, because you have to ride very precisely there and cannot push the bike hard.

Tardozzi also rejects criticism that the Desmosedici was developed only for Marquez. That is “discorsi da bar”, meaning bar-room talk. Ducati can develop individual solutions for each rider. Francesco Bagnaia, for example, has a different fairing from Marquez and for a long time ran different aerodynamics on the swingarm.

Bagnaia himself had a difficult weekend. He crashed at Turn 17 on lap six. By his own account, he lacked pace and confidence. He tried to follow Luca Marini and crashed while trying to push harder. Above all, the lack of rear grip and the poor connection to the throttle troubled him in Mandalika. Fermin Aldeguer is heading for surgery after his crash: according to Tardozzi, his right thumb will be operated on in Barcelona on Tuesday. A start at Phillip Island is unlikely.

Why was Ai Ogura unhappy despite fourth place?

By his own assessment, Ai Ogura was still the slowest Aprilia rider at the end. He was also the only one of the four RS-GP riders not allowed onto the podium.

The Japanese rider worked his way past Alex Marquez, Di Giannantonio, Acosta and Marc Marquez during the race. He was only really satisfied with the middle part of the race. At the start, the team had not found the best set-up, and more than fourth place was not possible. His crash on Friday had no influence on the result.

There is some consolation for the future Yamaha factory rider: in the championship he overtook Acosta and is now fourth. However, it was not a deliberate duel for this position, says Ogura. He simply wanted to gain as many places as possible.

What records did Marco Bezzecchi set in Mandalika?

Marco Bezzecchi has taken his first eleven MotoGP wins at eleven different tracks. Before him, only Freddie Spencer, a two-time 500cc world champion, had achieved that.

It was also the 300th win by an Italian in the premier class and Bezzecchi’s eighth win on the Aprilia. Between his victory at Mugello and the win in Mandalika there were 133 days, including the serious injuries from his crashes at Assen and the Sachsenring. His first thought in hospital was when he could win again, he says.

According to the manufacturer, it was Aprilia’s fourth one-two-three of the season after Le Mans, Assen and Silverstone, and its 310th win in the motorcycle world championship overall. In the premier class, the brand from Noale now has 16 wins, eight of them this year.

Bezzecchi’s celebration on the cool-down lap raised a smile. Aprilia test rider Matteo Baiocco handed him a pepper mill. According to Bezzecchi, it is an old joke with his friends, who try to put pepper in everything. He knew nothing about the stunt beforehand.

How does the title fight continue after Mandalika?

Jorge Martin leads with 355 points ahead of Marc Marquez with 353 and Marco Bezzecchi with 309 points. There are still 185 points up for grabs in the last five races.

The season continues from 23 to 25 October with the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island. Sepang in Malaysia follows a week later, then the Qatar Grand Prix as the third part of a triple-header. Marquez still sees three riders in the title fight. Bezzecchi will be fast at every track, he says; he already showed that last year when he won the last two races. Martin, for his part, warns about his rival: “Marc makes fewer mistakes. Every day you make a small mistake, Marc is there to beat you. He is always there.”

Bezzecchi himself knows that, 46 points behind Martin, he is a long way back. With only five races left, the title is more lost than won, he says. But he does not want to give up; that is not his style.

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