Marc Marquez taught Jorge Martin a harsh lesson at the Indonesian GP

Aprilia’s historic 1-2-3-4 at the Indonesian Grand Prix should be a moment to celebrate. That’s no mean feat in a championship as tight as MotoGP is in 2026. And it’s even more impressive when you consider just where Aprilia has come from when it returned to the championship in 2015.

But it’s hard to look at its Mandalika weekend as anything more than a massive missed opportunity, and one that raises some uncomfortable questions.

The RS-GP was clearly the best bike around Mandalika all weekend; Marc Marquez’s sprint victory on the Ducati was a matter of circumstance rather than raw speed. Aprilia was never in any danger of being beaten in the grand prix, and Marc Bezzecchi saw to that expertly with his first win since May.

Prior to the 2026 event, Marquez had never finished a grand prix at Mandalika. On two occasions, the circuit left him with major injuries. On top of that, the Ducati doesn’t work well with the stiffer tyre carcass Michelin brings to Indonesia. Everything was stacked against Marquez.

It was a weekend to survive. At one stage, he even took the championship lead. To end it with the deficit as it was after Japan, however, that’s arguably even better than his brief points lead after the sprint.

“On Thursday, if you said to me, over the whole weekend, I’d lost just three points to [Marco] Bezzecchi and equal Martin, it was a dream,” Marquez told the media on Sunday. “And we achieved it, in the worst circuit for us. We did a great weekend, we were able to be consistent during the whole weekend. It’s true in the race we struggled a lot, especially in the second part. But I’m just happy how the weekend ends.”

Marquez is the big winner in Indonesia

This has been an important week for Marquez in the 2026 title battle. The Japanese Grand Prix was a must-win, after a missed opportunity at the previous round in Austria. No one was expecting big things from Ducati or Marquez in Indonesia; it was always going to be about damage limitation.

Now clear of it, he goes to tracks that are better suited to him and his bike, while the tyre construction goes back to normal.

That’s a tough spot for Martin to be in, because now the pressure gets serious. And already at Mandalika, Marquez started to dial up the mind games. The reigning champion shadowed Martin in qualifying, knowing he had to push for a better lap, and therefore couldn’t back off to let Marquez go away.

The end result was Marquez fourth on the grid and Martin fifth. It was a small result in Marquez’s favour, but what happened in the sprint was a sign that it had gotten under Martin’s skin.

Martin terrifically avoided the Turn 1 chaos that saw team-mate Bezzecchi and polesitter Raul Fernandez controversially collide to take the lead of the sprint straight away. Then the tyre-pressure rules felled him.

Now, this wasn’t his fault, nor Aprilia’s. He was left with no choice but to let second-placed Marquez into the lead to try to boost his front tyre pressure. Clearly, Martin was still faster than the Ducati. But making a move on him to get back into the lead proved to be difficult.

On the penultimate lap, Martin made a mistake at Turn 16 and ran wide, dropping him from Marquez’s wheeltracks in second to fourth. It was a small mistake, but costly. Marquez stole a victory that should have been Martin’s and moved four points into the championship lead for the first time.

Martin got the better of Marquez in the main race, finishing third to his sixth. That reversed the championship lead, but only two points in the Aprilia rider’s favour. Martin knows the pressure of fighting for a championship, having done so against Pecco Bagnaia in 2023 and 2024, winning in the latter year.

He somewhat dismissed the difference between fighting against Bagnaia and Marquez as being not too dissimilar in the post-race press conference. But he’s trying to do something nobody has done before, which is beat Marquez to the title in a straight head-to-head. Jorge Lorenzo came close in 2013; Andrea Dovizioso pushed him to the Valencia finale in 2017. But he had the measure of them, while his other title wins were dominant.

Aleix Espargaro was right to praise Martin for this earlier in the Indonesia weekend, especially given he hasn’t won a race since Le Mans and is still only one for the season. But Indonesia did show that he’s not bulletproof when the cards are stacked against him.

Aprilia must throw its full support behind Martin now

What was clear in Indonesia was that Martin was, at no point, the fastest Aprilia rider. Fernandez was superb in qualifying and should have won the sprint. In the grand prix, he would have been harder to beat had he not had two broken fingers.

But, in any event, third was likely the best Martin could have hoped for.

“For sure, consistency will be super important. Speed will be super important. And to be intelligent,” Martin summed up about the championship battle. “For sure, there is something missing every race - a little bit missing every race. I hope this is not what I will miss after the season finishes. But we are always there, always making points, almost always on the podium. So, really happy about my performance.”

Martin is going blow for blow on consistency with Marquez, who is now continually emerging as the best Ducati rider and maximising his strong weekends while keeping the points coming in on the weak ones.

He needs a difference-maker to tip the odds in his favour. Aprilia is often coming to races with multiple riders able to fight for the win and the podium. At the moment, Marquez is fighting as an army of one.

The subject of team orders within Aprilia has come up more in recent weeks, though Fabio Sterlacchini says “this isn’t the time” and it will wait one or two races before making a final decision.

This would be foolish, however. It’s become apparent that the big swings in this title race seem to have come to an end. For much of the last few weeks, it’s been a matter of small margins. The situation was level after Misano; it was 12 points after Austria; and now it’s stayed at two points across Japan and Indonesia.

There’s nothing to say Bezzecchi’s Indonesia win won’t be the start of a rapid overhaul of his 46-point gap to Martin. But Aprilia also can’t afford to be sentimental now. Never in MotoGP has it come close to winning the championship; to throw that away to spare some feelings would be a catastrophic display of mismanagement.

Aprilia must now rally its riders around Martin’s cause, especially Bezzecchi and Fernandez, who will remain Noale employees next season, and make the most of something Ducati currently has no option to do.

“I have no doubt that sooner or later Aprilia will issue team orders; it seems right and logical to me, and I would do it,” Ducati’s Davide Tardozzi said last weekend.

Ducati has been in this situation before. And it found out that issuing team orders is one thing; getting the riders to action them is another. Ultimately, Aprilia - unless it threatens sanctions - can’t force someone to do anything when they are on the bike. But ignoring the idea completely can’t be an option.

As harsh as it would have been, given how well he rode, had a provision been in place that the second-placed rider ceded a position to Martin in third, then why not sacrifice a Fernandez result that means - with the greatest of respect - nothing in the bigger picture of Aprilia’s world championship ambitions?

That extra four points would have given Martin a six-point lead leaving Mandalika. That’s still not massive, but a six-point gap coming into the Valencia finale would mean Martin would only have to shadow Marquez, if he won the race, to be crowned champion…