The 2026 MotoGP season kicked off with final weekend’s Thai Grand Prix, the place Aprilia stole the present with an awesome victory.
After a powerful pre-season, Aprilia fulfilled its check promise by taking pole place with Marco Bezzecchi and simply profitable the 26-lap Grand Prix.
Bezzecchi turns into the primary Aprilia rider to win three races in a row, following his successive victories in Portugal/Valencia on the finish of final season.
At Buriram, he missed an opportunity to win a clear sweep after crashing whereas main throughout a dash, however he did not stumble once more on Sunday.
Aprilia occupied 4 of the highest 5 positions, with Raul Fernández third, Jorge Martin a formidable fourth regardless of restricted testing time, and Ai Ogura recovering from a sluggish begin to take fifth.
In distinction to Ducati’s fortunes, the tempo they confirmed on the Buriram check appeared to vanish by the Grand Prix weekend.
Marc Marquez led the way in which, taking second place within the dash and on the right track to goal for a podium within the Grand Prix, however an unlucky wheel failure within the closing levels ended his profession.
Fabio Di Giannantonio took the lead for Ducati, however he completed sixth, greater than 15 seconds off the race lead.
Pedro Acosta’s first dash win and second place within the Grand Prix means he leads the championship for the primary time in his MotoGP profession, and KTM is off to a a lot stronger begin than this time round 12 months in the past.
However the story of the weekend was a heated battle between Marquez and Acosta and a controversial dash end.
Marquez aggressively overtook Acosta on the last nook of the penultimate lap, however the end result was a small nudge that pressured the KTM rider from the circuit.
FIM stewards ordered Marquez to drop one place as a penalty, however didn’t accomplish that till the ultimate nook.
He was upset by the penalty, however Ducati branded it “unfair”. And the choice finally divided opinion on social media.
Dre Harrison, Lewis Duncan and Peter McLaren focus on the incident intimately on the newest Crash MotoGP podcast.
The staff additionally displays on the Thai Grand Prix, Aprilia’s robust begin, Ducati’s troubles and Yamaha’s disastrous begin to the season.
