Peter Bom analyses why Aprilia has outshone Ducati through the first half of the 2026 MotoGP season
It is the summer break in MotoGP, and a glance at the standings shows that Aprilia is the big winner of this first half of the season. With all four of their riders in the top six, they leave Ducati with only two spots to spare. That was quite different a year ago, when at this point the first Aprilia was in sixth place and everything ahead of them was Ducati! Aprilia also firmly holds first place in the constructors’ championship standings.
Let’s look at the main factors at play here.
Taking Marc Marquez out of the equation
In a season where, to date, not a single rider has managed to score consistently, it is striking that Marc Marquez is still the highest-ranked Ducati rider despite six (!) zero scores. He is in third place but has already crashed out of the race three times and has also failed to start three times due to shoulder problems. An injury-free Marquez would probably already be comfortably in first place by now. But anyway, we know that Marc is quite special, and that is why it is better to look at the performances of the other riders if we want to form an impression of the Ducati.
The Ducati GP26
And that doesn’t look too good. After Fabio Di Giannantonio in fifth place, we find two- time world champion Pecco Bagnaia, along with the 2025 runner-up Alex Marquez, in disappointing eighth and ninth positions. Ducati’s development has seen several ups and downs in the past. For instance, the tricky GP23 was followed by a better GP24, but the GP25 proved difficult to ride once again. So, entirely in line with expectations, the GP26 is completely good again. And yet, when I look at the Ducati riders, they all seem to be performing a step below expectations. Was the development of the GP26 simply not significant enough? Or has the competition made an even bigger leap forward?
The Aprilia RS GP
That competition comes from from their own country, so if Aprilia are better, that is usually particularly painful for their fellow Italians at Ducati. Unlike Ducati, the development curve of the RS GP has shown no downs to date, only ups. The last time they did something revolutionary was in 2020, when the cylinder angle went from 72 degrees to the more common 90. In the years that followed, we saw a constant stream of improvements, rarely taking a wrong direction. So, no revolutionary changes but a continuous evolution. The strongest point of the engineers at Noale is their knowledge of applying aerodynamics. An incredibly difficult subject because a motorcycle is very complex due to its constantly changing attitudes towards the upcoming air.
It’s pitching back and forwards and can lean to over 60 degrees. Where Ducati, as a pioneer in this field, should actually have a headstart, it turns out that Aprilia is now setting the tone here. The current RS GP has two strongpoints: it can turn very well into corners under hard braking and, with that, it has a good corner exit too. In addition, the Aprilia makes the best use of what is known in aerodynamics as ‘ground effect’. This effectively sucks the side of the motorcycle against the road surface in fast, continuous corners, allowing for higher cornering speeds.
My conclusion
Bologna (Ducati) and Noale (Aprilia) are located only 150km apart. As a result, every MotoGP race is also a sort of derby between the two manufacturers. Currently, the RS GP is a better MotoGP racer than the GP 26. The Aprilia actually has no weak points, has the best aerodynamics, and the technical crew quickly finds the right settings every race. The Ducati seems more complicated (think of the extra options for the semi-automatic ride height adjustments ) and seems to raise questions for the riders more often. A piquant detail is that experts attribute Ducati’s recent domination of MotoGP primarily to their technical director, Gigi Dall’Igna. And do you know where they got him from? That’s right – from Aprilia!
