Aprilia has emerged as Ducati’s most consistent challenger – some argue its equal – since the middle of the MotoGP season, but it took until the Portuguese Grand Prix for its factory team to score a 2025 Sunday victory entirely on merit.
Although Marco Bezzecchi won the British Grand Prix in May, that victory depended on Fabio Quartararo’s retirement from a comfortable lead. And while Raul Fernandez took the Australian Grand Prix in October, he was representing the independent Trackhouse team.
Bezzecchi’s patience had been tested ahead of Portugal, given he was often the fastest man but contrived not to cross the line first on Sunday. This was true at two of the previous three rounds, in Indonesia and Australia. But he crashed with Marc Marquez at Mandalika, and the consequent double long lap penalty then left victory to Fernandez at Phillip Island.
Speaking after his lights-to-flag win from pole position at Portimao, Bezzecchi said he had always kept faith.
“We were able to improve day by day,” said the Italian. “Of course, I always believed in the project, and I’ve always been confident with my bike. The engineers and the whole factory in Noale worked super well always. It’s true that at the beginning, we struggled a bit, but then we were able to improve.
“It’s been a long journey for sure until now, because we started very far [from the pace at] the winter test and then we started to improve day by day, hour by hour, on the bike. And the guys worked super well especially all [at] the factory, they were studying and analysing 24/7.
“The work on track with the engineers, Fabiano [Sterlacchini], but also Sava [test rider Lorenzo Savadori], helped a lot for improving the bike.
“And of course, riding more and more, I also got to know the bike better. We built something better day by day.
“Of course, we are still missing something. You can see at some tracks, we suffer a little bit more. But also every Friday, we are a bit [further from the pace]. We had to start [weekends] always from zero – but for the moment, it’s going well and hopefully we can continue like this.”
The Portuguese win all but confirmed Bezzecchi as the man who will finish the championship in third behind the Marquez brothers.
He will go into the Valencia finale next weekend with a lead of 35 points over fourth-placed Francesco Bagnaia, who would have to snatch all the available points on the weekend even to have a chance of taking third. In addition, Bezzecchi would need to fail to score in Spain.
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