MotoGP 2026: Marc Marquez wins Aragon GP to close in on championship lead

By Vishal Venugopal
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Pedro Acosta and Marco Bezzecchi completed the podium.

Marc Marquez capped a weekend of retaliation at Aragon with a dominant win, fighting past Marco Bezzecchi and Pedro Acosta in the race’s opening laps before pulling clear in the closing stages. Acosta held on for second after a difficult qualifying the previous day, while Bezzecchi completed the podium from pole.

  1. Marc Marquez moves up to second in the championship
  2. Jorge Martin leads the championship by 19 points
  3. Bagnaia crashes out early

Marquez fights back after early setback

At lights out, Marquez attacked into Turn 1 as he had in the Sprint but admitted afterwards that he had left the rear ride-height device engaged, which caused him to drop back as Bezzecchi swept through to lead. Martin capitalised as well, muscling his way past Marquez to give Aprilia a 1-2 on the first lap.

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By the end of Lap 1, however, Marquez had undone some of the damage and made an aggressive yet effective move on Martin, sending him wide and into the clutches of Acosta, who was in pursuit. Bezzecchi still led by around six tenths, but Marquez and Acosta were hot on his tail, and by Lap 5, the gap to Bezzecchi had been all but closed.

A three-way fight for the lead

With Bezzecchi’s lead down to about six-tenths, Marquez found a way past Bezzecchi in a daring battle down the straight, but Acosta immediately swept around the outside to take the lead himself. The three ran nose-to-tail through half-distance, separated by little more than a second, as Alex Marquez and Martin settled into fourth and fifth further back.

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Marquez pulls clear

The lead trio kept trading fastest laps deep into the race, but in the closing stages, Acosta and Bezzecchi couldn’t keep up with Marquez’s pace. The current world champion managed to scratch a gap to cross the line comfortably clear, taking the win ahead of Acosta and Bezzecchi, who followed in second and third. Alex Marquez crossed the line in fourth, with championship leader Martin taking fifth and matching his result from the day before.

The rest of the pack

Fermin Aldeguer took sixth, ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio in seventh. Further back, Enea Bastianini caught and passed Diogo Moreira on the final lap to take eighth, while Brad Binder narrowly beat Jack Miller in a separate scrap for ninth, demoting Miller to 11th. Raul Fernandez, who had been closing on Martin for fifth in the opening laps, retired around a third of the way through the race, while Francesco Bagnaia crashed out early.

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Championship standings

Marquez’s win moves him up to second in the standings, now 19 points behind Martin after the Aprilia rider’s double fifth-place weekend. Bezzecchi’s two podiums also close his gap to Martin, and he sits third overall.

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