MOTO GP

Jorge Martín wins French GP and leads Aprilia's absolute dominance at Le Mans

The champion is back! Jorge Martín shone this Sunday morning (10) and achieved a spectacular victory at the French Grand Prix in Le Mans. The current world champion delivered a great race, overtook his teammate Marco Bezzecchi in the final laps and secured another triumph this season. Bezzecchi crossed the finish line in second place, while Ai Ogura completed the podium in third, sealing another Aprilia one-two finish — which also placed three bikes among the top three and confirmed the manufacturer's strength and dominance in the 2026 season.

Martín achieved his first victory in a main race this season and ends a two-year drought without wins on Sundays; the last one had been at the Indonesian Grand Prix in 2024. And Ai Ogura was the first Japanese rider since 2012 to reach the podium.

With this result, Marco Bezzecchi remains in the championship lead with 128 points, closely followed by his teammate Jorge Martín with 127. Fabio Di Giannantonio is in third place with 84 points, completing the top three in the overall standings.

How was the race? Bezzecchi had a good start and took the lead in the first few corners. Pedro Acosta also had a great start and battled for second place with Fabio Quartararo, while Fabio Di Giannantonio was in fourth, trying to get into the fight for the podium. Right behind them was Pecco Bagnaia, who didn't get a good start and lost positions.

Johann Zarco even reached the top five, but lost many positions and dropped to 15th. Then, Álex Márquez crashed alone in sector 1 and abandoned the race.

At the front, the Italian Marco Bezzecchi opened up a six-tenths advantage, while Pedro Acosta and Quartararo engaged in an intense duel for second place. After several attempts, the Spaniard prevailed and took second place. Fabio didn't give up and remained under pressure from Bagnaia until, on the fourth lap, the Italian managed to overtake him to take third place.

At the back of the pack, Diogo Moreira wasn't having a good race and was losing positions until he was only a second behind Toprak.

The battle between Pedro Acosta and Pecco Bagnaia continued intensely until the Italian, on the outside, made a beautiful overtake to take second place. Further back, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Jorge Martín, who are still in the title fight, were dueling for fourth position.

In a back-and-forth exchange, Martín managed to stay ahead of the Italian. Fabio Quartararo, after losing many positions throughout the race, was right behind, trying to recover, and even challenged Ogura for position, but was doing well.

On lap 11, Brazilian Diogo Moreira, who hadn't been having a good race and was facing difficulties throughout, crashed and abandoned the race. On lap 16, Pecco Bagnaia, who was making a recovery drive and fighting for a podium finish, also crashed and abandoned the race.

Further back, Joan Mir and Fabio Quartararo were battling for sixth place. Mir managed to take the position, but again couldn't maintain his good performance and crashed again, repeating a pattern that has marked his career and compromised his results. Brad Binder also crashed shortly after.

Pedro Acosta couldn't hold onto third place and was overtaken by Ai Ogura five laps from the end. Meanwhile, Jorge Martín closed in on Marco Bezzecchi and began to pressure his teammate in the fight for the lead. The Italian resisted as best he could, but at turn 3, he couldn't hold off the Spaniard's attack, who overtook him, took the lead, and won the race.

MotoGP returns next week between the 15th and 17th for the Catalan Grand Prix.

by Autonews