“I miss a lot of laps”: What Assen MotoGP showed Jorge Martin about Aprilia

Jorge Martin thinks is still missing “a lot of laps” with the Aprilia RS-GP, despite having been with the Noale manufacturer for over one-and-a-half years now.

The time itself is not indicative of Martin’s experience with the Aprilia, of course, given he missed almost all of 2025 with injuries and had to skip the first test of 2026 for injury as well.

Martin’s admission that he is still behind on RS-GP mileage came after he took the championship lead at Assen, a race in which he finished third.

The 2024 MotoGP champion had led the early laps but in the second half of the race he was overhauled by the two Trackhouse Racing riders, who themselves reversed the order from Saturday’s Sprint, with Ai Ogura taking the win ahead of Raul Fernandez in second.

Aprilia Racing’s Martin explained afterwards that he struggled to achieve the same performance after he was passed by the Trackhouse riders and put in their slipstream, and that he was not able to match the two satellite riders in the high-speed corners, a deficit Martin believes is a consequence of that lack of experience with the RS-GP.

“I was leading and for sure when you are leading everything works better: your front has grip, it’s not overheating,” Jorge Martin said in the post-race press conference at Assen.

“I was trying to control the rear temperature, but as soon as they overtook me I started to have more problems, so I tried to stay behind them, I tried to follow them. 

“At some point I thought about second position with Raul [Fernandez], but he made no mistakes. 

“They were super-fast in the fast corners, it’s where now I need to understand and improve. 

“I think I miss a lot of laps with Aprilia and I’m in the process of getting more comfortable on the bike.”

Martin takes a seven-point championship lead to the Sachsenring on 10–12 July after Marco Bezzecchi crashed out at Assen, making the Dutch Grand Prix the Italian’s third non-scoring Sunday race in succession.