Ducati MotoGP rider believes gap to Aprilia is closing despite Silverstone deficit

Although the Silverstone MotoGP was dominated by Aprilia, Alex Marquez thinks Ducati is closing the gap to the Noale manufacturer.

Ducati won three of the last four races before the summer break, all with Marc Marquez, as well as the Catalan Grand Prix with Fabio Di Giannantonio and the Spanish Grand Prix with Alex Marquez.

Both the older Marquez and Di Giannantonio were within a race win of championship leader Jorge Martin going into the British MotoGP at Silverstone last weekend, but have left it 40 and 41 points behind, respectively.

No Ducati rider finished on the podium in either race at Silverstone, results that led Di Giannantonio to brand Ducati as the “second power” in MotoGP at the moment.

But Alex Marquez,who finished as the first Ducati rider in fourth in Britain, thinks that Ducati’s margin to Aprilia is decreasing in 2026, and that the Silverstone domination by the RS-GPs was to be expected.

“I think if you compare from the beginning of the year, the gap [between Ducati and Aprilia] is much smaller,” said Gresini Racing’s Marquez after the race at Silverstone.

“Especially in tracks like this, that always Aprilia was super-fast.

“So I think we are getting closer and closer, we are doing a really great job inside Ducati and every time, compared to the beginning of the year, we improve a lot the bike. 

“We are [making] more steps and understand the good things that the bike has. 

“I think we can extract the potential, so it's what we are doing now. 

“So, honestly speaking, before coming here, I was expecting that Aprilia had more advantage, and we were close to them, so I'm happy for that.”

MotoGP heads next to Aragon, where Aprilia has never won and where Ducati has won the last four grands prix, the last two with Marc Marquez.