Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez has put himself firmly in the title fight in 2026, and championship leader Jorge Martin is already looking ‘defeated’.
Marquez claimed his 10th MotoGP win at the German GP, dominating the weekend with pole position and maximum points. Meanwhile, Martin struggled on the Aprilia, finishing sixth in the Sprint and fifth on Sunday.
The Spaniard leads the championship heading into the summer break by 14 points over Ai Ogura, with Marquez now 18 points behind in third. The top five are separated by just 24 points, and Martin is already feeling the pressure.
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Jorge Martin was looking ‘defeated’ in the paddock after Marc Marquez enters 2026 title fight
According to journalists in the paddock, Martin was looking ‘defeated’ and ‘depressed’ after the race at the Sachsenring. The 2024 champion does not look at one with the RS-GP and is struggling to extract the most from the bike.
Adam Wheeler said via the Paddock Pass Podcast: “My loser, I’m going to say, Jorge Martin. It might sound a little bit strange. But in his debrief today, he had this demeanour of someone who’s a little bit…”
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Colleague David Emmett then cut in and said: “Defeated.” To which Wheeler replied: “Yeah. A little bit depressed. He said, ‘I need more speed.’ He looks like he hasn’t quite figured out the Aprilia.
“It’s tricky to define what he means by, ‘I need more speed,’ but it almost seems to be like an adaptation process to the bike that is still not completely his.
“And we’re seeing these huge fluctuations in what Martin can produce. It’s either brilliant, like you know we’ve seen at a couple of Grand Prix, or he’s sort of skirting disaster, like we saw most emphatically in Hungary and like in the test day of Barcelona.
“So, it was just a bit of a confusing message there from Jorge.”
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Martin warned Aprilia he would not be the championship leader if they do not revert to the setup he was using at the start of the season. Ducati and Marquez are beginning to stamp their authority again, and Trackhouse are outperforming the factory Aprilia team.
Marquez is benefiting from other people’s mistakes and is now, despite his earlier injury setbacks, arguably the firm favourite to win the title in 2026. Martin has the advantage for now, but he and Aprilia have got a lot of work to do to keep it.
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