World Championship lead is gone: Marc Marquez explains the reason for the defeat

The situation heading into the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring was thrilling. Marc Marquez (Ducati) was leading the World Championship with 274 points. Aprilia rider Jorge Martin had the same number of points to his name, but was in second place because ‘MM93’ had secured more wins in 2026.

In Saturday’s qualifying, Martin secured pole position, whilst Marc Marquez started from second on the grid. Martin got off to a good start and entered the first corner in the lead. At the chicane, Marc braked aggressively on the inside to overtake Martin, causing the Aprilia rider to run wide and drop back to fifth place. One corner later, Acosta took the lead as Marquez missed the apex.

Acosta then pulled away, whilst Marquez was unable to keep up with the pace set by his future team-mate. From the back of the field, Martin worked his way through the pack; shortly after the halfway point of the 14-lap race, the ‘Martinator’ struck back – the 2024 World Champion squeezed past Marquez on the inside of Turn 1. Martin had the better pace and was now chasing down Acosta. On the eleventh lap, the RC16 rider overdid it – he entered the chicane too quickly and crashed. Martin then had a clear run and won by a one-second margin. Márquez crossed the finish line in second place, 0.6 seconds ahead of Bezzecchi.

“My aim was to finish third in the sprint race and not let too many points slip away from Jorge. I’d already seen in practice that Pedro and Jorge had the better pace. Then I ended up in the position I wanted – right behind Jorge,” explained Marquez. “We obviously benefited from Pedro’s mistake. At the moment, we mustn’t put all our eggs in one basket, but have to try to stay in the flow. We’re all riding at the limit and a mistake happens in the blink of an eye. Pedro was leading, but he was also under pressure because we were pushing from behind. That’s just the way racing is.”

Marquez described the battles between himself and Martin, in which each opponent went off the track, as normal, hard-fought racing. “I’d predicted that it wouldn’t be a good idea to attack going into the first corner,” explained the defending champion. “So I prepared my attack for Turn 2. Then I was overtaken by Acosta in Turn 3 because I was too slow coming out of it. Jorge was faster than me; we’re analysing why that is. We struggled in Thailand and here again with this tyre compound. We’ve hardly changed anything on the bike; it’s down to the tyres.”

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20.09.2026 - 08:45