Alex Marquez: Ducati need to “improve” 2026 MotoGP bike after Aprilia gains

Alex Marquez says he has “more security” for MotoGP 2026 now he has a factory bike but has put the onus on Ducati to find performance improvements.

Marquez finished second in a Ducati 1-2 at the top of the championship last year, winning three races. Only his brother, Ducati Lenovo’s Marc Marquez, beat the #73 in the championship, the older sibling winning 11 grands prix, 14 Sprints, and clinching the title with five rounds remaining.

For the younger brother, his second-place run in the 2025 season was enough to earn him a factory bike for 2026, something he says gives him “more security” for the upcoming season.

“It gives to me especially more security, more maturity to approach things, but especially because we have all the ingredients to cook our things slowly and we will have all that we will have from Ducati to have performance,” Alex Marquez told MotoGP.com during the Gresini Ducati team launch in Kuala Lumpur.

He added, though, that the emphasis is on Ducati this year to improve the performance of the Desmosedici GP in the final year of the current 1,000cc regulations after KTM, Honda, and especially Aprilia all made progress in the second half of 2025, the latter winning three out of the last four races.

“We will try to help, but especially it’s Ducati that need to make the job to improve a little bit more the bike,” Marquez said, “because some manufacturers in the last races of last year were coming closer and closer. 

“So, we will try this preseason to try the new things that Ducati will bring to us and try to make the bike stronger and stronger.”

Marquez went on to reaffirm, though, that he has “confidence” in Ducati to make progress with its MotoGP bike this year.

“It will be interesting because last year especially Aprilia and KTM were quite close in the end; they were coming and were making some steps – also the riders, not just the manufacturers, [...] Bezzecchi and Acosta made some steps and they were quite close,” he said.

“But especially I think it will be a really interesting year to see what the manufacturers make for the last season of these rules. 

“So, it will be quite interesting, but I have the confidence that Ducati will make some steps, they already did some this winter and the bike will be more competitive, more complete, and in the points that we suffered a little bit more it will be even stronger.”

Marquez also said that he feels there is room for himself and the Gresini Racing team to improve their own performance, separate to the performance of the bike.

“It’s true that, after the year that we did last year, we are on the table [...] for this year,” he said.

“It’s something normal, it’s something I like, everybody is seeing us as a big competitor and this is always good. 

“So, what we need to do with the team is the same job we did last year: try to not change many things; try to not change especially the mentality, the mentality should be the same one because it helped me and also the team last year to achieve those results. 

“But also we will try to improve our weakest points. 

“We know [what they are], we analysed during all the winter with the team, so we will try to be even more complete in some points of the season that [in 2025] we did some mistakes.”