Hands up if you saw any of this coming?
Marc Marquez falling over 100 points behind the MotoGP championship lead, but recovering to remain in contention. Two new sprint race winners and one first-time Grand Prix victor. Half the grid signing deals with new teams and manufacturers for next year halfway through this one. And the closest top five in the standings after 11 rounds in MotoGP history.
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They’re just a smattering of the storylines that have defined the first half of the 2026 season while keeping MotoGP fans and the sport’s insiders on their toes, rubbing their eyes in disbelief or shaking their heads, in no particular order.
And they set up an unpredictable and intriguing final run to the finish line of this season – and MotoGP’s 1000cc era – in Valencia in late November, before riders scatter to pastures new and the 850cc-powered bikes of the future era finally become its present after being on the horizon for over two years.
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With teams and manufacturers trying to thread the needle on prioritising any race or title-winning chances this year with an eye to what’s next, it’s a delicate balancing act some will topple over trying to achieve. For the riders who are about to climb off a bike they know can win now for one they might – maybe – achieve success on down the road, the next 11 rounds could define careers, cement (or spoil) legacies and bolster future earnings and status in equal measure.
In a season as scattered as this one, predicting what storylines will be the ones to follow from this weekend’s return at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix onwards is fraught with peril. But 2026 is all about being bold and brave, so we’re in.
Our pick of the plots still to play out? These.
MARQUEZ VS MARQUEZ
No, not a reprisal of the 2025 title ‘fight’, quotation marks necessary after Marc Marquez secured his seventh premier-class world championship with five rounds remaining in Japan after his advantage over younger brother Alex swelled to 201 points; that the elder Marquez’s winning margin was ‘just’ 78 points at season’s end was down to his shoulder injury and subsequent surgery after crashing in the next round in Indonesia.
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That latest operation on the mangled right side of the 33-year-old’s body compromised the pre-season of his 2026 title defence, and led to another surgery – to clean out a screw that had broken and was impinging on his radial nerve after round five in France, where he also broke his right foot – which saw him miss the Catalan Grand Prix, and then fall to 102 points behind championship leader Marco Bezzecchi after he returned with a muted seventh at Mugello in late May.
Given the largest deficit overcome in the MotoGP era to win a title was the 91-point head-start Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia gave Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo before winning the 2022 title, over 100 points would be a mountain too high to climb for most riders. But once again Marquez has proved he’s the exception to most rules, moving to within 18 points of new series leader Jorge Martin – and already back ahead of Bezzecchi – after his win in the German Grand Prix, his third in four rounds heading into the mid-season break.
Marquez is still physically underdone, and spent plenty of his off-season break training to regenerate the muscle and stamina in the right side of his body that he said had been “sleeping” for most of the year’s first half.
He’s back in the fight as one of the five riders within 24 points – less than one Grand Prix victory – of Martin, and with championship know-how and proof of process, he’ll be hard for his rivals to beat from here.
Perhaps Marquez’s biggest challenge? Keeping the handbrake on his ambition and impulses, and staying as injury-free as possible. The oldest of the title-chasing quintet, it’s logical that he doesn’t handle crashes as well as he once did, and he’s already crashed nearly as many times this year (11) as the whole of last (14) in his attempts to keep up.
Marquez is the logical favourite from here, but there’s always the chance he could be his own worst enemy. There’ll be falls – this is MotoGP in 2026, after all – but how he bounces back from them is the bigger story.
CAN APRILIA KEEP IT TOGETHER?
Aprilia’s RS-GP is the best bike on the MotoGP grid; that’s more fact than opinion, given Aprilia’s four riders have shared six Grand Prix wins and four sprint victories in 11 rounds so far.
That’s not in question, but the staying power of that aforementioned quartet is.
Is Aprilia’s best title chance Martin, who is leaving for Yamaha at the end of the year, has been the slowest Aprilia for the past two rounds, and can vacillate wildly from a perfect weekend (winning the sprint and Grand Prix in France) to a putrid one (five total crashes and no points in Barcelona one round later) in no time at all?
Might Aprilia’s best title hope be second-year rising star Ai Ogura, just 14 points from the series lead after 11 rounds, a rider who crashes less than half as often as his championship rivals, and someone with better momentum than any rider not named Marc Marquez?
Or is Marco Bezzecchi’s first four rounds – which featured three Grand Prix wins and 101 points – the norm rather than the past four, where crashes and controversies have seen him amass a paltry 13 points from Hungary to Germany?
Being in title contention has been a long, long time coming for a manufacturer that was once MotoGP’s doormat, and with the uncertainty of the biggest regulation reset since 2012 just months away, there’s no telling when – or if – that chance will come around for Aprilia again.
Were it not for the threatening spectre of Marquez, an Aprilia rider would be odds-on to take the title in 11 rounds’ time. But with the screws tightening, which of Aprilia’s title contenders – all legitimate ones in their own ways – will be able to hold the line?
RIDERS SERVING OUT TIME
We’ve all been there, serving out time with an employer we’ve decided to move on from, but one we’re obliged to stay with per the fine print in a contract or because of company protocol.
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It’s no different for the 11 – at least – riders who have been announced as changing teams or manufacturers (or both) for 2027 in the past month, let alone the likes of Alex Rins and (likely) Jack Miller and Maverick Vinales, for whom the final 11 rounds of the season are likely to double as their last laps in the world championship.
While some partings are likely to be copacetic – it’s hard to imagine Francesco Bagnaia’s long association with Ducati that has yielded two world titles and 31 victories over eight seasons being anything other than amicable – there’ll be more tense goodbyes elsewhere, where riders who have tolerated their predicaments with thinly-veiled contempt for years having no reason to hold back or toe the party line.
Fabio Quartararo’s dismay with Yamaha might be edited less than usual now his move to Honda for 2027 is confirmed, while Pedro Acosta’s frustrating three-season wait for a maiden win with KTM might magnify before he heads to Ducati next year.
Of the title contenders, Martin is a watch for this very reason; the Spaniard’s two-year tenure at Aprilia has rarely been bereft of drama, and trading in this year’s best bike for its worst in 2027 might unlock an emotional response even by Martin standards if the wheels on his championship wagon begin to wobble.
QATAR’S CALENDAR CONUNDRUM
Those 11 rounds we mentioned earlier? That includes the Qatar Grand Prix set for November 6-8 as the 20th round of 22 this season; the race at Lusail was set to take place from April 10-12 as round four, but was moved to November because of the conflict in the Middle East at the time.
In recent weeks, Formula 1 has shifted its Bahrain Grand Prix, rescheduled from April to October 2-4, to the Sepang circuit in Malaysia, 6000km away, while retaining its Bahrain Grand Prix moniker. No replacement, as yet, has been announced for F1’s Saudia Arabia race, which was also cancelled in March.
In late July, the World Endurance Championship cancelled its Bahrain and Qatar rounds, reshuffling its calendar to include races in Spain (Catalunya) and Italy (Monza) in their place.
As yet, MotoGP hasn’t called off its Qatar round, and a 21-round season would satisfy contractual arrangements between broadcasters and the sport’s promoters. A planned return to Lusail for the first round of the 2027 season was abandoned last week, when MotoGP announced it would start the campaign for a second straight year in Thailand from March 5-7, with no other dates for the 2027 season yet made public.
A cancellation of Qatar this season so close to the end of the calendar could play a part in the championship picture, with a maximum 37 points on offer across a sprint and Grand Prix being taken off the table should the race not be held, or not replaced with another event elsewhere.
Watch this space …
THE ISLAND’S LAST DANCE
From a local perspective, the 30th and final Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix to be held at Phillip Island has been a date we’ve all known was coming since February, when the shock announcement came that the local round of the world championship would shift to Adelaide from 2027 onwards, most likely as the final round of next season.
With 11 – or perhaps 10 – rounds remaining in 2026, the Island’s last lap is looming larger by the week, with the track mentioned in the same breath as Mugello in Italy by most riders as their favourite set to take its final bow at what shapes as a critical juncture of the season.
The build-up to the October 23-25 event is likely to be nostalgia-filled and full of sentiment, mixed with some underlying regret that one of the sport’s greatest challenges will fall off the calendar, likely to never return.
The Island’s quirks – high-speed predominantly left-hand turns, wild weather swings, local wildlife prone to invade the track and facilities that can be politely described as from a bygone era – will be enjoyed or endured for one last time, and for riders like Marquez, a four-time winner in Australia, the Island could be a chance to ram home an advantage or overcome a deficit, given none of his title rivals have won in Australia in any world championship class.
For local MotoGP fans, there is no other storyline that’ll resonate quite as much for the remainder of 2026, particularly as the Island’s swansong could well double as Miller’s final world championship ride at a circuit where he’s beloved, and has a corner (turn four) named in his honour.
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