Marco Bezzecchi
Aprilia were the class of the field at the 2026 season opener in Thailand, and Ducati chief Davide Tardozzi was left praising his Italian rivals after the race.
The Noale outfit were looking to continue where they left off in 2025, having closed the gap to Ducati while Marc Marquez was out injured. They did exactly that at the Thailand Grand Prix as Marco Bezzecchi claimed a dominant victory from pole position.
The first race of 2026 is done! What would you rate the Thailand Grand Prix out of 10?
Bezzecchi crashed from the lead in the Sprint race, but the Italian bounced back brilliantly on Sunday as he led every lap and took the win over KTM’s Pedro Acosta by five and a half seconds.
Aprilia locked out P3, P4 and P5 in Thailand as Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez completed the podium. Bezzecchi’s teammate Jorge Martin was fourth, while Ai Ogura produced a late charge to finish fifth.
Neil Hodgson notes Davide Tardozzi’s ‘fantastic’ Aprilia verdict ‘off-camera’ at the Thailand Grand Prix
The Thailand GP ended Ducati’s 88-race streak of having at least one rider on the podium. Fabio Di Giannantonio was the highest-ranked rider in sixth, with his VR46 teammate in P8 ahead of Francesco Bagnaia.
Test rider Michele Pirro, who was standing in for Gresini rider Fermin Aldeguer, was 19th and last, while the Marquez brothers retired from the race. Marc Marquez had a rear tyre failure on lap 21 and Alex Marquez crashed heavily moments later.
It was a weekend to forget for Ducati, but the Thailand GP was a clear sign that Aprilia are closing in on the top spot in MotoGP. Tardozzi offered his praise to his Italian rivals after the race, as Neil Hodgson noted on TNT Sports.
Bezzecchi beat the best Ducati, Diggia, by over 16 seconds. After the race, Hodgson shared what Tardozzi said ‘off-camera about the Noale outfit: “What was it, 16 seconds? When was the last time a manufacturer found 16 seconds in one season? I can’t remember. That is huge.
“And Davide Tardozzi said it to us off-camera, I don’t know if he said it to us on camera as well, just saying like, bravo to Aprilia. Chapeau, that was it. You have to respect that.”
READ MORE: Everything to know about Aprilia from the MotoGP team’s riders to hierarchy
Davide Tardozzi admit Ducati had a ‘completely different’ bike in Thailand than pre-season
Bagnaia admitted Ducati were no longer the fastest on the grid after the Thailand GP. He struggled to find any competitive edge all weekend, getting knocked out in Q1 and could not fight his way past P9 in either race.
Tardozzi admitted that Ducati had a ‘completely different’ bike to the one they had in pre-season testing only a week ago. The team cannot understand the situation, but thankfully, they have three weeks until the next race to assess the damage.
Has Ducati’s dominance in MotoGP finally come to an end?
“Very difficult weekend, because it seems that Aprilia grew up a lot,” he added. “They was incredibly fast with the four riders this weekend, so chapeau, because they did a fantastic weekend.
“In the end, there is something strange. This weekend, we found the bike [to be] completely different from the previous one when we was here for the test, and that’s something that we still have not understood.”
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