Jorge Martin on Aprilia's Brazil GP chances: 'We are a step away from Ducati'

Aprilia may have won the last three grands prix, including the Thailand season opener, but it faces a tougher challenge from Ducati in Brazil

Jorge Martin has conceded that Aprilia is lagging behind Ducati heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix, predicting it will be “impossible” to follow the Desmosedici if conditions remain unchanged.

The 2024 MotoGP world champion made that comment following Saturday’s sprint race at Goiania, where title holder Marc Marquez led a 1-2 for Ducati ahead of Fabio di Giannantonio.

Aprilia's charge was spearheaded by an emotional Martin in third, with team-mate Marco Bezzecchi and Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura trailing him in fourth and fifth respectively. The only Aprilia rider to struggle on Saturday was Raul Fernandez, who failed to escape Q1 and then finished outside the points in 16th.

While the Noale-based marque dominated the season-opening Thailand Grand Prix earlier this month with a 1-3-4-5, Martin believes the pendulum has swung back in Ducati’s favour on MotoGP’s first visit to Brazil in over two decades.

“You say it’s an Aprilia track but we have a Ducati 1-2,” Martin told TNT Sports. “We are a step away from them. I‘m confident. Here, it’s more about how fast riders can adapt to the conditions. Today was really different from other practices, so I hope to improve for the race.”

Martin qualified fifth after a late crash in Q2, but climbed up to third in the sprint after overtaking Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Bezzecchi, who lost time with a mistake on lap six. But by the time the Spaniard had moved into podium position, he had little chance of closing the gap to the front, and he ultimately finished the sprint 3.6s behind Marquez.

Commenting on the gap between the two Italian brands in the post-race media scrum, Martin said: “When I overtook Marco, I was already 2.5 seconds [behind]. So I lost half a second more in 10 laps. So [the deficit is] not that big.

“I think we [hope to] start a bit better tomorrow. Here, it's difficult to overtake. For sure, both bikes are really fast. In Thailand, we were better, and now it seems like they are a bit better. So we need to improve a bit for tomorrow because they are a bit faster, and for the moment, over 31 laps, it's impossible to follow them.”

Jorge Martin, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

For Brazil, Michelin has brought two stiffer rear tyre casings that are identical to the ones raced in Austria last year, while only the hard rear matches the specification from Thailand - a compound Ducati particularly struggled with.

For the upcoming rounds, Michelin is expected to revert to the standard tyre constructions on both front and rear. Marquez cautioned against drawing conclusions from a single weekend, pointing to the unique tyre situation in Brazil.

“You cannot evaluate the level of a rider or the level of the bike in one race,” the Ducati rider declared. “You need to take five races and then try to understand where we are.

“The fact is that only here we changed the casing, the bike is working in a different way, and it's not the casing that we will have during the [remainder of the] season. So, in Austin, we will have another casing.

"So, the most important thing for me, for a championship, is to be there [at the front]. And it's what I try to do. In rainy conditions, be there; damp conditions, be there; new circuits, be there.”