Motegi [Japan], October 4 (ANI): The 2026 Motul Grand Prix of Japan delivered a scintillating double victory for Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo Team), who battled past title rival Jorge Martin (Aprilia Racing) on Sunday afternoon to chop the standings lead back down to that ultra-slim margin ahead of a trip to Indonesia.
It was the 2024 World Champion, Martin, who collected a vital 20 points to hold onto the title race lead, while teammate Marco Bezzecchi kept his cool under intense late pressure from a charging Enea Bastianini (Red Bull KTM Tech3) to pick up a podium.
With just two points separating Martin and Marquez, the MotoGP season heads to Indonesia next week for the Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia, according to a press release from Eurosport.
The hot pre-Grand Prix topic: hard rear Michelin, or medium? The answer, across the board, was the recommended hard rear option. Every rider in the same boat. An incredibly tough one to call with so little running on the hard rear option through the weekend. A journey into the unknown. A huge 24 laps ahead.
And soon enough, it was lights out time at the Mobility Resort Motegi. From pole, Martin grabbed the holeshot to keep Marc Marquez behind him, as Bezzecchi and Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) – who had to serve a double Long Lap penalty – picked off Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing). The Austrian GP winner was shuffled down to P5 from the outside of the front row.
That was soon P8 on Lap 2 though as Bastianini, Raul Fernandez (SuperFile Trackhouse MotoGP Team), and the #25’s home hero teammate Ai Ogura demoted Acosta to the lower end of the top 10.
Clicking onto Lap 5 of 24, 0.4s split Martin and Marc Marquez as both threw down 1:43.6s, with Bezzecchi 0.6s away from the tailpipes of the reigning World Champion. Alex Marquez took the first of his two Long Laps on Lap 5, which saw the #73 drop to P5, promoting Bastianini to P4, while his second completed Long Lap on Lap 7 dropped Alex Marquez to P9, one spot behind Tissot Sprint podium finisher Diogo Moreira (Pro Honda LCR).
By Lap 10, Martin and Marc Marquez’s pace seemed too much to handle for Bezzecchi at this stage of the Grand Prix. 1.9s was now the gap between the top two in the title race and the Italian. The #89 and #93, winners of the 2024 and 2025 World Championships, traded fastest laps of the Grand Prix before the first move from Marquez came on Lap 11 at Turn 9.
A lunge up the inside, Marquez parked his Ducati on the apex to cement his move on Martin, as we now pondered what the response would be from Martin.
The immediate response was seeing the #93 edge his lead up to 0.8s by the start of Lap 15, with Bezzecchi and Bastianini now quicker than Martin. In fact, they were both quicker than Marquez too. 1.3s was the gap between Martin and Bezzecchi, while Bastianini sat 1.9s off third place.
The first time Martin notched up a lap quicker than Marquez in a while was on Lap 16. Just over a tenth was taken out of Marquez’s lead, 0.7s the gap now, and on the next lap it was marginally quicker again. 0.7s isn’t a realistic striking distance, but Martin was at least keeping the pressure on here in Japan.
A 1:43.291 was slammed in for the eight-time MotoGP World Champion to give himself an added slice of breathing room, and the advantage grew to 1.2s on the next lap.
It then came back down to 0.9s, as Bezzecchi and Bastianini fired in fastest laps of the race. Bastianini was 1.2s away from Bezzecchi’s rear Michelin, then a flat second, as Bastianini dropped another fastest lap. And then the hat-trick! Bezzecchi was quickly coming under increasing pressure from ‘The Beast’ as we entered the final lap of the Japanese Grand Prix.
Marquez led by 1.2s and was in a relatively comfortable position. So too was Martin. But it was anything but comfortable for Bezzecchi. Bastianini set a fourth consecutive fastest lap of the Grand Prix to reel in Bezzecchi, but it wasn’t quite enough.
Just two seconds up the road from the Italians, Marc Marquez completed the double in Japan to notch up his 79th victory. And after the disappointment of Austria, the reigning Champion responded on the soil where he clinched the 2025 title a year ago to close the gap to two points to second-place Martin, who picks up his sixth P2 of the year to limit the damage done. A successful weekend for the top two in the title race.
Some seriously impressive late-race pace from Bastianini closes out a very good weekend for the Tech3 Italian, with the gap to fifth-place Fernandez, who won the ferocious fight for top-five honours between home favourite Ogura and Acosta, sitting at 12.4s.
Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) was 3.4s behind the Fernandez, Ogura, Acosta battle in P8, with Fermin Aldeguer (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) and Luca Marini for Honda HRC Castrol in their backyard completing the top 10.
The other points scorers in Japan? Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) in P11, Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) in P12, Somkiat Chantra (Honda HRC Castrol) in P13, the returning Maverick Viñales (Red Bull KTM Tech3) in P14, and Franco Morbidelli (Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team) in P15. (ANI)
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