MotoGP 2026
Round 16 – Motegi – Sunday
Hard rear throws another variable into Motegi equation
Johann Zarco headed into Sunday’s Grand Prix carrying a double long-lap penalty after attempting to restart his Honda on the racetrack during morning Warm Up, while Alex Marquez also faced a double long-lap penalty for his role in the opening-lap Sprint crash that eliminated Fabio Di Giannantonio and Pedro Acosta.
Marc Marquez had topped the morning Warm Up ahead of Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin, with Fabio Quartararo a somewhat surprising fourth ahead of Ai Ogura.
As the riders sat on the grid, more than a few eyes began glancing skyward. Temperatures had dropped, and the slightest possibility remained that the weather might complicate proceedings.
A much more significant pre-race complication had already occurred. Excessive rear-tyre wear during Saturday’s Sprint had prompted Michelin to withdraw the Soft rear from the available race allocation. The Medium remained available, but Michelin strongly recommended its differently constructed Hard rear for the 24-lap Grand Prix.
Ducati had not always looked completely at home on that construction in recent times, adding another intriguing variable to a race in which there had been precious little opportunity to tune the bikes around it.
In the end, the entire field lined up with a Medium front and Hard rear.
And right at the front sat the two men separated by only seven championship points: Jorge Martin on pole alongside Marc Marquez, with Pedro Acosta completing the front row.
Twenty-four laps of Motegi would determine whether that gap would open again — or disappear almost completely.
Martin leads as Marquez begins applying the squeeze
Martin made the better launch and led Marquez into Turn 1, while Marco Bezzecchi jumped into third ahead of Alex Marquez and Pedro Acosta.
The opening lap felt tentative as riders worked out the grip available from full fuel tanks and the unfamiliar Hard rear, particularly on corner entry.
Martin completed that first lap three-tenths clear of Marquez, with Bezzecchi less than half a second back and Alex Marquez still right there in fourth.
Enea Bastianini displaced Acosta from fifth on lap two before Raul Fernandez, and then Ai Ogura also worked their way through, dropping Acosta to eighth.
Martin was quickest of the leaders on that second lap and stretched his advantage over Marquez to around half a second. Bezzecchi sat another four-tenths back and was particularly strong through the middle of the lap.
The factory Aprilia rider then produced a 1m43.686 on lap three to establish a new race benchmark, although Martin and Marquez were only hundredths away.
Alex Marquez remained in touch with the leading trio, but his double long-lap penalty meant any hopes of converting that early pace into a podium challenge were always going to be compromised.
Marquez lowered the race benchmark again on lap four with a 1m43.609, while Martin responded with a 1m43.674 and the leading trio continued to circulate at remarkably similar pace.
Alex Marquez served the first of his long laps on lap five, dropping behind Bastianini but rejoining ahead of Raul Fernandez. His second long lap two laps later would send him all the way back to ninth.
Zarco’s penalties were similarly costly. He had worked his way into 11th before the first long lap dropped him to 15th, and the second left him back in 18th.
Up front, Bezzecchi refused to let the championship protagonists escape. His 1m43.495 on lap five lowered the benchmark again and kept the leading trio within a second.
The race was now beginning to come alive as the riders gained confidence in the Hard rear.
Martin looked particularly strong through the opening half of the lap, while Marquez appeared to be using less track and making up time through the latter sectors.
Martin’s advantage had been around half a second after lap two, but Marquez had reduced that to three-tenths by lap six, a little over two-tenths by lap eight and just 0.149 seconds after lap nine.
Marquez was now close enough that Martin would have been acutely aware of the Ducati sitting behind him.
A coded dash message then appeared on Martin’s Aprilia telling him he was being followed by #10. Luca Marini was nowhere near the front, making it clear the message meant something only Aprilia and its rider would understand.
Diogo Moreira’s remarkable weekend then came crashing down. Saturday’s Sprint runner-up went down on lap nine while running eighth and was out of the Grand Prix.
Marquez set a 1m43.414 on that ninth lap, Martin answering with a 1m43.488. One lap later Martin produced a 1m43.328, but Marquez was only 0.034 slower.
At the end of lap ten, the championship rivals were separated by barely a tenth.
Marquez strikes at Turn 9
Marquez made his move at Turn 9 on lap 11.
He came from a long way back, but Martin left the inside open once it became clear the Ducati was committed, and Marquez took the lead for the first time.
The two championship protagonists had now broken clear.
Bezzecchi was more than two seconds behind in third, with Bastianini another couple of seconds further back. Raul Fernandez held fifth, with Ogura and Acosta close behind.
Once in front, Marquez began steadily stretching the elastic.
His advantage was a little under three-tenths at the end of lap 11, half a second after lap 12, two-thirds of a second after lap 13 and almost nine-tenths by the completion of lap 15.
Nothing dramatic. Just a fraction here, another fraction there, small bites accumulating.
At the same time, Bezzecchi and Bastianini began to circulate more quickly than Martin, raising the possibility that second place might eventually come under pressure if the championship leader could not find an answer.
He did.
Martin dropped back into the 1m43.4s on lap 16 and followed that with another strong lap on 17, cutting Marquez’s advantage from nine-tenths to just over seven-tenths.
Marquez answered immediately.
A 1m43.291 on lap 18 became the new fastest lap of the race and pushed the advantage back to more than one second.
The way Marquez managed the race suggested he still had something in reserve, the defending champion content to use only what he needed while also managing the shoulder that has troubled him.
Alex Marquez’s difficult race then ended altogether with a crash on lap 19. Jack Miller also went down at almost the same time, although the Australian was able to remount and continue.
Bastianini comes alive
While Marquez controlled the race at the front, the most dramatic late charge was developing behind.
Raul Fernandez, Pedro Acosta and Ai Ogura had spent much of the race fighting intensely over fifth, the Japanese crowd finding its voice every time Ogura made a move.
Acosta got ahead of Ogura for sixth on lap 16, but the Trackhouse Aprilia rider reclaimed the position as the race entered its closing stages.
Further forward, Bastianini suddenly began eating into Bezzecchi’s advantage.
The Tech3 KTM rider set a 1m43.198 on lap 20, then improved to 1m43.189 on lap 21.
With three laps remaining, Marquez held a lead of just over a second over Martin. Bezzecchi was roughly another second and a half behind the Aprilia, while Bastianini had now reduced what had been a 1.6-second deficit to Bezzecchi six laps earlier to just over a second.
Then came a 1m43.128 from Bastianini on lap 22.
That brought him to within 0.578 seconds of the final podium position with two laps remaining.
And still he got quicker.
Bastianini fired in a stunning 1m43.041 on the penultimate lap, closing to only 0.343 seconds behind Bezzecchi as they started the final tour.
That was comfortably the fastest lap anybody produced all afternoon — 0.235 seconds quicker than Bezzecchi’s best, a quarter of a second faster than Marquez and 0.287 better than Martin.
It also smashed Francesco Bagnaia’s previous Motegi race-lap record of 1m44.412 by well over a second.
Bastianini attacked Bezzecchi at Turn 10 on the final lap but almost ran into the back of the Aprilia and had to abandon the move.
He stayed glued to Bezzecchi through the closing corners but couldn’t manufacture another opportunity.
At the line, only 0.078 seconds separated them.
Marquez closes championship gap to two points
None of that troubled Marc Marquez.
The Ducati rider completed the final lap to win by 1.363 seconds over Jorge Martin, taking his second maximum score of the weekend and cutting the championship leader’s advantage from seven points to two.
Martin leaves Japan on 333 points. Marquez has 331.
Next up is Indonesia, a venue that has rarely been kind to Marquez and one that could prove especially significant now that the championship battle has become almost impossible to separate.
Bezzecchi completed the podium and remains very much alive in the title fight on 284 points, 49 behind team-mate Martin. But with the leading pair now separated by only two, the championship is increasingly taking the shape of a two-rider contest.
Bastianini’s extraordinary late charge earned him fourth and underlined just how potent both the KTM and the Italian were on the hard rear.
Raul Fernandez eventually won the frantic fight for fifth, beating Ogura by less than four-tenths.
Ogura’s sixth place made it four Aprilias in the top six — Martin second, Bezzecchi third, Fernandez fifth and Ogura sixth.
That strength also produced another major championship development: Ducati and Aprilia now leave Motegi tied on 469 points at the top of the Constructors’ Championship.
Acosta had to settle for seventh after failing to reproduce the front-running promise he had shown earlier in the weekend.
Francesco Bagnaia finished eighth, more than 20 seconds behind his victorious team-mate. It was at least an improvement on his Sprint retirement, but still a stark contrast to the performance on the other side of the Ducati garage.
Fermin Aldeguer was another three seconds back in ninth, while Luca Marini completed the top ten as the first Honda home.
Brad Binder narrowly missed Marini at the flag and finished 11th.
Fabio Quartararo was the leading Yamaha in 12th, taking the chequered flag more than 30 seconds after Marquez.
The Yamaha’s straight-line deficit was again impossible to ignore. All four Yamaha riders occupied the bottom four positions on the race’s five-run average top-speed ranking.
Alex Rins averaged 312.3 km/h across his five fastest speed-trap passes, Quartararo 312.5, Toprak Razgatlioglu 312.6 and Miller only 311.2 km/h.
By comparison, Binder averaged 321.5 km/h on the KTM — more than 10 km/h faster than Miller.
Rins recorded the quickest race lap of the Yamaha quartet with a 1m44.425, just seven-thousandths quicker than Quartararo’s 1m44.432. But more than a second slower than the podium getters.
Miller eventually finished 19th after remounting from his lap-19 fall, while Zarco’s penalty-hit afternoon deteriorated further when he crashed on lap 20. The Frenchman remounted and was eventually classified 20th, two laps down.
Marc Marquez, meanwhile, heads to Mandalika having transformed what was a seven-point deficit on Sunday morning into just two points by Sunday afternoon.
The championship fight is now very much on.
Motegi MotoGP Race Results
 |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Time/Gap |
| 1 | M. Marquez | Duc | 41m31.467 |
| 2 | J. Martin | Apr | +1.363 |
| 3 | M. Bezzecchi | Apr | +2.252 |
| 4 | E. Bastianini | KTM | +2.330 |
| 5 | R. Fernandez | Apr | +14.815 |
| 6 | A. Ogura | Apr | +15.210 |
| 7 | P. Acosta | KTM | +16.928 |
| 8 | F. Bagnaia | Duc | +20.333 |
| 9 | F. Aldeguer | Duc | +23.545 |
| 10 | L. Marini | Hon | +25.677 |
| 11 | B. Binder | KTM | +25.853 |
| 12 | F. Quartararo | Yam | +30.867 |
| 13 | S. Chantra | Hon | +31.333 |
| 14 | M. Viñales | KTM | +33.995 |
| 15 | F. Morbidelli | Duc | +34.590 |
| 16 | A. Rins | Yam | +39.228 |
| 17 | T. Razgatlioglu | Yam | +39.562 |
| 18 | F. Di Giannantonio | Duc | +50.816 |
| 19 | J. Miller | Yam | +1m11.127 |
| 20 | J. Zarco | Hon | 2 laps |
| Not Classified | |||
| DNF | A. Marquez | Duc | 6 laps |
| DNF | D. Moreira | Hon | 16 laps |
2026 MotoGP Championship Standings
|
||
|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Points |
| 1 | J. Martin | 333 |
| 2 | M. Marquez | 331 |
| 3 | M. Bezzecchi | 284 |
| 4 | P. Acosta | 243 |
| 5 | A. Ogura | 237 |
| 6 | F. Di Giannantonio | 230 |
| 7 | R. Fernandez | 216 |
| 8 | F. Bagnaia | 164 |
| 9 | A. Marquez | 158 |
| 10 | F. Aldeguer | 122 |
| 11 | E. Bastianini | 116 |
| 12 | L. Marini | 104 |
| 13 | B. Binder | 99 |
| 14 | D. Moreira | 74 |
| 15 | F. Quartararo | 66 |
| 16 | F. Morbidelli | 57 |
| 17 | J. Zarco | 48 |
| 18 | J. Mir | 33 |
| 19 | J. Miller | 28 |
| 20 | A. Rins | 24 |
| 21 | T. Razgatlioglu | 18 |
| 22 | M. Viñales | 12 |
| 23 | I. Lecuona | 9 |
| 24 | A. Fernandez | 6 |
| 25 | P. Espargaro | 5 |
| 26 | S. Chantra | 3 |
| 27 | T. Nakagami | 3 |
| 28 | C. Crutchlow | 0 |
| 29 | J. Folger | 0 |
| 30 | L. Savadori | 0 |
| 31 | M. Pirro | 0 |
2026 MotoGP Calendar
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Rnd
|
Date
|
Event
|
Circuit
|
| 1 |
01 Mar
|
Thai
|
Chang International Circuit
|
| 2 |
22 Mar
|
Brazil*
|
Autodromo Internacional Ayrton Senna
|
| 3 |
29 Mar
|
US
|
Circuit of the Americas
|
| 4 |
26 Apr
|
Spain**
|
Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto
|
| 5 |
10 May
|
France
|
Le Mans
|
| 6 |
17 May
|
Catalonia
|
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya
|
| 7 |
31 May
|
Italy
|
Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello
|
| 8 |
07 Jun
|
Hungary
|
Balaton Park Circuit
|
| 9 |
21 Jun
|
Czech
|
Automotodrom Brno
|
| 10 |
28 Jun
|
Netherlands
|
TT Circuit Assen
|
| 11 |
12 Jul
|
Germany
|
Sachsenring
|
| 12 |
09 Aug
|
GB
|
Silverstone Circuit
|
| 13 |
30 Aug
|
Aragon
|
MotorLand Aragon
|
| 14 |
13 Sep
|
San Marino
|
Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli
|
| 15 |
20 Sep
|
Austria
|
Red Bull Ring-Spielberg
|
| 16 |
04 Oct
|
Japan
|
Mobility Resort Motegi
|
| 17 |
11 Oct
|
Indonesia
|
Pertamina Mandalika International Circuit
|
| 18 |
25 Oct
|
Australia
|
Phillip Island
|
| 19 |
01 Nov
|
Malaysia
|
Petronas Sepang International Circuit
|
| 20 |
08 Nov
|
Qatar
|
Lusail International Circuit
|
| 21 |
22 Nov
|
Portugal
|
Autodromo Internacional do Algarve
|
| 22 |
29 Nov
|
Valencia
|
Circuit Ricardo Tormo
|
