Bitter Catalunya MotoGP round a worrying sign for Aprilia’s title hopes

In a season where a bad day has so far been a second-place finish on a Sunday, it’s almost impossible to comprehend Aprilia going from an historic 1-2-3 at the French Grand Prix to having its podium run abruptly halted seven days later at the Catalan Grand Prix.

Aside from last year, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya had been a good spot for the RS-GP. Its agility helped it excel on the low-grip asphalt, which certainly hadn’t gotten any grippier when the paddock rolled out onto the circuit under gloomy skies on Friday.

Despite a nasty crash in FP1 and a second fall at the end of Practice, leaving Jorge Martin to face Q1, as well as Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura also missing the cut, Aprilia looked like it was in the game. Marco Bezzecchi, the championship leader, displayed strong long-run pace despite not being 100% happy with where his bike was at.

But things just never progressed. Martin made it through Q1, though crashed for a third time, and could do no more than ninth on the grid. Bezzecchi was left in 12th after having his own fall in the pole shootout session.

Bezzecchi was lucky to scavenge a point from the sprint, as Ogura came from 18th to jump him in eighth. Martin fell again while running inside the top six, with Raul Fernandez left to pick up the pieces for Aprilia in fourth after losing a podium late on to VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Fourth in the history books reflects an ok end to the weekend for Bezzecchi. But that doesn’t tell the story of him dropping out of the top 10 prior to the first red flag for Alex Marquez’s horrendous accident on lap 12 of 24 on the back straight between Turn 9 and Turn 10.

It also doesn’t show that he was promoted two places; first by a penalty for Ogura, who nerfed Pedro Acosta on the last lap of a race restarted a third time after a second red flag for a collision involving Johann Zarco. Fourth was a result of second-placed Joan Mir falling foul of a hateful tyre pressure penalty.

The rest of the scoresheet read as thus: Ogura eighth, Raul Fernandez 17th after a tyre pressure penalty and an early off for a collision with Martin, who in turn was not classified despite remounting and making It to the chequered flag.

Bezzecchi’s fortunes were apparent. He was in real danger of losing the championship lead to Martin. Instead, it grew from two points to 15. But left behind is a sense that it could have been so much more, had he not been distinctly average in the sprint.

Martin’s double victory at Le Mans has, though all parties involved like to publicly say to the contrary, put a lot more pressure on Bezzecchi’s shoulders. His run of five successive victories has very quickly be cast into the rearview mirror as the 2024 world champion’s growing confidence on the RS-GP and - until Barcelona - consistency has kept him well within range of the points lead.

From the off at Barcelona, Martin was over the limit. After the sprint, he finally conceded that this growing confidence has come while he is still fundamentally trying to adapt to the Aprilia.

“I still need to understand the Aprilia,” he said on Saturday after crashing out of the sprint. “I think we are finding the limit. For sure, this race track, with this low grip, is much more difficult. But this is part of the process.”

Bezzecchi has never excelled at Barcelona, but if ever there was a time to banish those demons, it was when your in-form team-mate failed to get directly into Q2. But, falls aside, Martin was just quicker than Bezzecchi for the rest of the weekend.

“It’s been a tough weekend,” Bezzecchi said. “But, to be completely honest with you, I started in a decent way on Friday and then I was just a little bit stuck there, and my pace was always quite similar. The others were improving and I couldn’t.”

Aprilia crisis management tested at Barcelona

For now, at least, Aprilia and Bezzecchi can look at Barcelona as an outlier. For the most part, the bike was competitive there. Bezzecchi hasn’t had a podium at the venue since his Moto3 days in 2018, so it is a bogey track.

But across effectively a 12-lap sprint on Sunday, Bezzecchi was well over three tenths per lap slower than eventual race winner Fabio Di Giannantonio, who was carrying a hand injury after being involved in the Marquez/Acosta incident.

To come away with an extended championship lead is a great deal of fortune that Bezzecchi won’t be able to rely on for long if he can’t figure out where his pace went across the Barcelona weekend. One could look to the unusual track conditions, but the RS-GP - and Bezzecchi - proved that was no issue in the early part of this season.

Bezzecchi’s weekend, ultimately, was the good news story for Aprilia. Martin’s five crashes were an unwanted crash back to Earth after his Le Mans heroics. As was Ogura’s lacklustre qualifying and penalty for clattering into Acosta on the final lap of the grand prix.

Martin’s fifth crash of the weekend wasn’t his fault. But it marked a flashpoint in a title battle that Aprilia so far has no consistent equal, and one that’s been brewing for a while.

Aprilia has a tricky situation on its hands. Of its current roster, so far only Bezzecchi is staying. Martin and Ogura are off to Yamahha, while Raul Fernandez is fighting for his future. The latter’s hopes of keeping his Trackhouse seat have taken a significant knock with great ally David Brivio set to leave the team at the end of the year.

Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola has already ruled out team orders among its factory riders. But factory orders, even if he wanted them, will be even harder to implement.

Raul Fernandez escaped punishment for his collision with Martin early in the restarted race. But a possible podium challenge on a weekend where he was generally the best Aprilia was unnecessarily wasted. Fernandez’s move was clumsy, more so because of who it was against, but understandable given his 2027 predicament.

Rivola was furious, with cameras showing him gesturing to Brivio in pitlane. Brivio can’t exactly control what his riders do on the bike, and it is unclear if any discussions have taken place regarding rules of engagement with other Aprilias.

Martin’s initial response was concerning. He let his frustrations boil over when he got back to his pit box and shoved team manager Paolo Bonora. Martin, to his credit, did apologise publicly, but it’s not really clear what prompted that friendly fire response in the first place.

But this was a warning for Aprilia that the realities of its situation as a title contender are a lot harder than it realised. And clearly, operationally, it needs to sharpen up to manage any future fallouts.

Barcelona fumble a window of opportunity for absent Marc Marquez

That’s even more pertinent now when you look at the fact Di Giannantonio is just 26 points behind Bezzecchi now in the standings, with good Ducati tracks coming up over the next few weeks.

Ducati hasn’t had the season expected, but Di Giannantonio has been its most consistent campaigner. While his victory on Sunday came amid unusual circumstances, it had been coming for a long time.

Right now, the VR46 rider is comfortable on his GP26 and is banking points. If that continues, it will be hard to look past him as a championship contender, even if he is reticent to get too far ahead of himself right now.

More concerningly for Aprilia, it failed to inflict maximum damage on Marc Marquez. The absent world champion’s praises were sung in the pre-event press conference at Barcelona on Thursday, with a number of riders warning against ruling him out of title contention.

He came into the Catalan Grand Prix 71 points down in the standings. It ends with him only 85 adrift, on a weekend where a maximum points haul for Bezzecchi could have elevated that to 108.

At present, Ducati hasn’t given a timeline for when Marquez will return. And even then, it’s still no guarantee of what kind of rider we will get back. But if you base his early-season performances on the fact he was battling a nerve issue, it’s hard to imagine Marquez not coming back at a much higher level if his fitness is where it needs to be.

Eighty-five points is a big gulf, still, given what Bezzecchi and Martin’s form has been like up to the Catalan Grand Prix. But it’s not an impossible gap to close if Aprilia continues to implode on its bad weekends, of which there are likely to be a few more across such a long season…