MotoGP 2026 has entered its spring break with three primary title contenders emerging at this early point of the season.
Marc Marquez is one, on the strength of past form and precedent. Marco Bezzecchi is another. No surprises there – until we get to number three, Jorge Martin, who is emphatically in the championship mix after three rounds, trailing Bezzecchi by just four points and leading Marquez by 32.
Martin’s standing has been flattered by errors for Bezzecchi and Marquez, while he himself has stayed almost entirely error-free, save for his cooldown lap wheelie crash on Saturday at Austin. He and crew chief Daniele Romagnoli also stole a march in spectacular fashion by gambling on the medium tyre – alone in the whole field – for the sprint race that same day.
But this was supposed to be the lean period of Martin’s season, as he continues to grit his teeth through the final stages of injury recovery after a brutal 2025 and off-season surgeries.
The left hand, operated on again in the winter, has been a limitation – and finished off any aspirations he had of taking on Bezzecchi in the Grand Prix of the Americas.
“The last three laps I had to give up because my left arm was completely f**ked,” he said. “Sorry for the word. It was completely destroyed. I couldn’t brake anymore in Turn 12, and I just tried to finish.”
But also, he “thought it was going to be much worse”, with COTA a particularly extreme test of a rider’s fitness. And it is now being followed up by an extra month of recovery.
A lot of doubts that were only natural at the start of the season are being dispelled. The Aprilia RS-GP knowledge gap that exists for Martin relative to Bezzecchi has been proven as not insurmountable. The awkwardness of his particular situation – ie the open secret that he will ride for Yamaha next year – has not shown itself at all.
“You cannot understand how deep I was last season, how disconnected from this world, from MotoGP, really didn’t want to come back – and now I’m here. So happy, so thankful to Aprilia – and yeah, they are helping me a lot to reach my level again,” Martin said.
And, rightly, he is not dismissing title talk out of hand, with the COTA form giving him conviction that “we are going to be fast all season long” and that “in November we will see if we have the chance [at the title]”.
“For me, Austin and Jerez are maybe the worst of the season – let’s see [how] Jerez [goes],” Martin added.
“The important thing is to be consistent. If we’re able to be top five, trying to compete the same as we did here, like if these podiums didn’t happen – just try to focus on the performance, on helping each other with Marco, and making good points, because after – Le Mans, Mugello, there are a lot of tracks that are good for us and Aprilia, so I think maybe there is the moment to attack.”
Other limitations may yet rear their head, but at this moment in time, only one thing appears to be missing from Martin’s repertoire – and, uncharacteristically for him, it is qualifying.
He has spoken of not being able to release the brakes and attack the corners the same way as Bezzecchi, and this seemingly punishes him more over one lap.
In 11 qualifying sessions against Bezzecchi across 2025 and 2026 so far, Martin has qualified behind in all of them. The only time an Aprilia factory team-mate has outqualified Bezzecchi was a freak occurrence last year, with tester Lorenzo Savadori on Martin’s bike.
Bezzecchi vs Martin in qualifying
2025
Bezzecchi 8-0 Martin
Average gap: 0.629s
2026
Bezzecchi 3-0 Martin
Average gap: 0.289s
The gap has clearly been whittled down, but three tenths will still be far too much for any sustained period of time. Martin cannot reliably count on making up places in early-race battle – it’s just too high-variance for a championship challenge – and he already hinted at COTA that he would’ve been able to challenge Bezzecchi in the main race if he wasn’t hamstrung by track position.
It’s an unusual place for Martin to be in, as the rider in 13th in the all-time leaderboard of premier-class poles, who has long proven he can be something of a qualifying savant at his peak.
Bezzecchi currently looks like the only Aprilia rider truly comfortable over one lap. Martin, Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura all currently have limitations there.
Despite this, Martin is firmly in the title hunt. But should he figure out qualifying, he could plausibly graduate from title contender to title favourite.