How one MotoGP rival is frustrating Jorge Martin in his Aprilia contract dispute

The MotoGP news cycle is a cruel beast. No matter how good a job you have done during a grand prix weekend, it’s never immune to being overshadowed by an altogether juicier narrative.

That’s something Johann Zarco came to find after his heroic French Grand Prix victory. Not even 12 hours later, his win on home soil and first as a Honda rider was quickly forgotten as the bombshell reports emerged that reigning world champion Jorge Martin was looking to exercise a performance clause in his Aprilia contract to quit the team at the end of the year.

After a subsequent British Grand Prix weekend in which Aprilia made its stance clear, Marco Bezzecchi took a first win for the marque in one of sport’s all-time best displays of good timing, and Martin made his intentions clear, all had gone quiet on that front.

That was until Martin’s manager Albert Valera got in front of the Dorna world feed microphones and unpinned another grenade.

“Well, what we can say is that Jorge is free of contract for next year, for ’26,” Valera said. Unsurprisingly, Aprilia doesn’t agree and has even gone as far as saying that it is willing to drag this through the courts if it has to.

“As we said, the position is still the same: the rider is under contract with us…we took him to fight for the world championship and still I think we would be in that position this year, and we would like to be in that position this year. Marco is showing it’s possible to do it, so with him [Martin] it’s even more possible. We will do everything that is in our hands to protect the company. So, nothing has really changed. There are only two options: we find an agreement and we need to sit down and speak seriously, or we go to the courts. We are ready to do both and we will do everything we need to protect the company. Priority one is to keep the rider.”

This was a statement made by Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola prior to the start of the Dutch Grand Prix, on the same day Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta told Sky that Martin would not be entered into the 2026 season if a resolution was not found. A few hours later, Rivola would be celebrating a second-place finish for Bezzecchi as he shadowed Marc Marquez home.

Naturally, the brilliant double at a weaker venue for the Ducati rider on a weekend that started with two massive crashes is worth endless column inches. But the significance of the result of the rider behind him in the grand prix on the backdrop of MotoGP’s biggest off-track scandal in years cannot go unnoticed.

Marco Bezzecchi “risking like a b*****d” in pursuit of Marc Marquez

While the Silverstone victory remains Bezzecchi’s highlight of the season so far, the Dutch Grand Prix was easily his most complete weekend of his first campaign on the Aprilia. Finally, it appears as if the Noale-based brand has made the step with the bike in time attack trim to improve stability in qualifying.

Bezzecchi qualified fifth on the grid, which put him right in the hunt from the off. A demon on the brakes into the Geert Timmer chicane at the end of the lap, he used that to great effect to get into third in the sprint for his first Saturday podium since the 2023 Indonesian Grand Prix - back when he was a VR46 Ducati rider.

In the grand prix, that was his weapon. He passed polesitter Fabio Quartararo there on lap one to take fourth. On lap two, he scythed past Gresini’s Alex Marquez - who later crashed and broke his left hand - to get up to third, while on lap 8 of 26 he did the same to his great friend Pecco Bagnaia on the second of the factory Ducatis to position himself as Marc Marquez’s hunter.

“Honestly, I didn’t really expect it at all but when I found myself there I said ‘why not’,” Bezzecchi said afterwards. “At the beginning I was closer, but in the second half of the race he made a step in terms of pace and my fight was just to try to stay close - not to attack.”

That step eventually came around three laps from the end, when Marquez extended his lead from 0.391s to 0.704s to eventually get to the chequered flag 0.635s clear of Bezzecchi to complete his third successive sprint/grand prix double and open up a 68-point championship lead.

But before that crucial break, Bezzecchi didn’t give Marquez an inch. The Ducati rider tried to break away at the start of lap 13, having the previous tour actually run slightly wide at Turn 8 as he pushed to keep Bezzecchi at bay. Pulling 0.5s clear and setting a 1m32.273s, the Aprilia rider responded with his best tour of the race on lap 14 with a 1m32.275s. That kept the lead gap tight again.

Such was Bezzecchi’s form that he pushed Marquez into exceeding track limits three times - on laps 11, 13 and 20 - earning him an official warning. Had he done that twice more, Marquez would have been slapped with a long lap penalty. On average pace, the difference between the pair across the distance was just 0.013s per lap.

*(Table key: TL = Lap scrubbed for track limits; PB = personal best lap)

“This race was fantastic,” Bezzecchi declared. “I think it was the first time for me that I was so competitive through all the race and I was fighting, I was really on the limit for all the race. I never managed the tyre, I never managed myself. I was risking all the corners like a bastard, but then I had fun. So, it was good.”

What ultimately stopped Bezzecchi from ever lining up an overtake into the final chicane was a consequence of two things: Marquez’s traditional left-hander strength and the pitfalls of MotoGP’s modern aero machines.

“Marc was a bit stronger in Turn 15 and I always caught him in the wrong place, because I was faster in sector three but I was too close in the change of direction in the slipstream before corner 15 and in that area of the track it’s really difficult to stay close in the slipstream. So, I always had to step back a bit but then I wasn’t close enough for the braking of the last chicane.”

Bezzecchi tried to go with Marquez in the final laps when he made his push, but exceeded track limits on the penultimate tour. It was his only infringement, but proof that his absolute maximum wasn’t quite enough to overhaul the Ducati.

Jorge Martin having a hard time proving Aprilia is not competitive

With all the respect in the world to Marco Bezzecchi, Massimo Rivola is not wrong: if the No.72 is able to prove the Aprilia is a competitive, race-winning package in 2025, then a fit Jorge Martin should have had no problems in doing the same.

Whenever the reigning champion does return from injury, and the thought is that it could be either at the German or Czech Grand Prix next month, Bezzecchi will provide a good reference for him - albeit with tempered expectations, given the time he still needs to adapt to the RS-GP.

That is, of course, if Martin ever does return. As we’ve written previously on the matter, it’s a very difficult prospect to get a rider who doesn’t want to be on your bike motivated. If this contract dispute does descend into a courtroom drama, will Martin really feel compelled to risk his body again for a team that is trying to keep him to a deal he doesn’t want any part of, or conversely - should he win his case - risk injury when his apparent greener grass (all roads point to Honda) is just over the fence?

There is a long, long way to go in all of this before a resolution is found and the end result is unlikely to be one where everyone is left happy. But what Martin and manager Albert Valera will now find harder to argue is that the Aprilia is not competitive enough.

Aprilia is now second in the standings on 145 points, is the only marque to have beaten Ducati in dry conditions this season and is the leading non-Ducati in the riders’ standings in sixth with Bezzecchi. Fifteen more points and he’s into the top five ahead of VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, who is on the works-spec Desmosedici.

It is believed that the performance clause in Martin’s deal stipulated that an Aprilia rider must be in the top five of the championship after the French Grand Prix. The exact wording is unclear, but Aprilia being willing to take this to court suggests it’s not as ironclad as Martin or Valera believe it is.

Valera claimed at the Assen round that the Martin camp pushed for an extension on the performance clause to later in the year, but this hasn’t been accepted. Whatever the truth, Bezzecchi is doing a lot to help fight Aprilia’s corner - which is somewhat symbolic, when you consider he and Martin were reasonably bitter rivals prior to this year.

Putting aside whether or not Martin has a legal right in his contract to quit Aprilia, there is no denying that the way he has gone about it has been unbecoming of a world champion and of a rider who in January said he would “kill” for his new team.

Billed pre-season as Aprilia’s new ‘captain’ - a title Aleix Espargaro held during his tenure - it’s really Bezzecchi who has taken on this role in 2025. Left to spearhead development early in the year following Martin’s first injury struggles, throughout this contract saga he has typified what Aprilia is looking for in its ‘captain’.

“No. It doesn’t affect,” he said when asked about the effects of this situation on team morale. “I mean, my relationship with Aprilia is amazing. They welcomed me in a very good way. The whole factory is working good. I can only try to pay them back giving my all every corner, and this is what I’m doing every weekend.”

Aprilia has found itself a factory calibre rider, with speed to bring it top results, for a fraction of the price it spent on securing the signature of the 2024 world champion. Through the darkness of the 2025 season, Bezzecchi has provided much of the light for the Noale brand.

That has, though, created a brand-new problem Aprilia will have to reckon with now.

Bezzecchi is now on full display in the 2027 rider market shop window

While Jorge Martin remains the central figure of the 2026 rider market, Aprilia will now have to start casting its eye to 2027. And that’s all down to Marco Bezzecchi.

Bezzecchi’s speed as a MotoGP rider was never in doubt. But prior to this year, he’s always had the best bike in the Ducati and proved he could ride that well until 2024 when the switch to the GP23 saw his results slump from three grands prix wins the season before to just a single podium. He was also unproven in a factory surrounding.

Now, though, he’s proven a capable factory rider and that he can be fast on different machinery. To boot, he is the kind of rider a factory craves: quick, dependable, but also loyal.

With all factory deals up for renewal at the end of 2026, the 2027 rider market will be an open season. While the likes of Marc Marquez, Pecco Bagnaia, Fabio Quartararo and Pedro Acosta will be the triple A tier riders most coveted, a fantastic second seat option for a manufacturer alongside one of those star names will almost certainly be Bezzecchi.

Clearly happy at Aprilia right now, its priority will be to keep him around. But to do so, it will have to dig into the bank account and ensure that he will continue to have a winning project. So, no pressure then…