Marco Bezzecchi insists he is not giving up on his MotoGP title ambitions just yet, despite ceding further ground to Ducati rider Marc Marquez at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Having started the 2026 season as the favourite with three consecutive Sunday wins, the Aprilia rider has watched Marquez overcome a 102-point deficit into a near-unassailable lead in the championship in just four months.
Championship Standings and Upcoming Qatar GP
The Noale-based manufacturer again failed to put up a challenge against the Spaniard at Sepang last weekend, where Marquez claimed his seventh grand prix win of the season. Bezzecchi has now dropped 67 points behind the nine-time world champion in the standings, while his injured team-mate Jorge Martin trails him by 44 points heading into this weekend’s Qatar GP.
That means Marquez can wrap up the title with two rounds to spare if he outscores Bezzecchi by eight points and Martin by 30 at the Losail International Circuit. But despite the odds being stacked against him, Bezzecchi is not prepared to throw in the towel yet, stating he will keep fighting until he is mathematically out of contention.
“Let’s say that it’s super hard. Realistically, it’s tough. But until the math is on our side, I will keep believing, I will keep working as hard as I can every day at home and at the races,” Bezzecchi admitted, as reported by Motorsport.com. “Of course, it’s not an easy situation. Marc is doing well. This [Malaysia] GP comes in a part of the championship where we didn’t need a GP where we struggled. But it’s what we have, so we need to work even more, so we will do it and we will start from Qatar.”
Setbacks and Injury Struggles
Bezzecchi’s title challenge began to crumble in June after he was wiped out by Martin at the Hungarian GP and was then banned from the Czech GP for hitting a marshal. However, ultimately, it was the crash at the Sachsenring that did the biggest damage, leaving him with collarbone and knee injuries that continue to affect his performance.
Since the end of the summer break, Bezzecchi has scored just one grand prix win but has been scoring podiums on a regular basis. At Sepang, he finished third in the sprint but slipped to sixth in the full-distance race, not helped by a last-lap error that left him behind the Tech3 KTM of Enea Bastianini.
Asked whether he had become more consistent but lost the outright speed he showed at the start of the season, the 27-year-old explained how his mid-season injuries continue to leave him playing catch-up at every round. “I agree in part, in the sense that there have been times when we’ve struggled a bit more and times when we’ve struggled less,” he said to Motorsport.com.
“In the latter cases, I’ve felt pretty fast, but it’s true that I’m lacking a bit of explosiveness, especially at the start of the weekend – the kind that lets you hit the ground running. Since the injury, I’m still trying to find that; sometimes it comes more easily, other times less so. I think it’s something that can happen when you crash and get hurt. I’m working hard, and if I’ve managed it once, I can try to do it again,” Bezzecchi added.
MotoGP teams and riders are now organising themselves for their arrival in Qatar ahead of the next round.
