The paddock heads to Qatar from 6 to 8 November with a grid that has shrunk to a projected 13 riders, after Yamaha pulled out over security concerns in the Middle East and a string of injuries thinned out the field. Marc Marquez, leading the championship on the Ducati, can seal it on Sunday.
The most striking line of the week came from inside the garage that spent most of the season looking like the real threat. According to MotoGPNews, an Aprilia source admitted the manufacturer had, at one point, written Marquez off.
“Since they won so easily at the start of the World Championship, they believed they had eliminated Marc from the equation,” the insider was quoted as saying.
A 102-point gap that vanished
The remark points back to the spring. Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi had the early season largely to himself, and by the time the paddock reached Mugello in May, Marquez sat 102 points off the lead. Inside Aprilia, the sums seemed to have been done.
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What followed was a long run of Ducati wins that reset the championship. The 102-point hole became a 44-point advantage, with Aprilia’s Jorge Martin now the closest challenger and Bezzecchi a further 23 points back on 332. Marquez carries 399.
A finale with gaps on the grid
The weekend will be run with a line-up thinned out across the field. Yamaha’s factory team and its Pramac satellite operation, meaning Fabio Quartararo, Alex Rins, Jack Miller and Augusto Fernandez, are absent after the manufacturer cited company-wide travel restrictions tied to the situation in the Middle East. Alex Marquez is sidelined by shoulder surgery.
Several more riders carry fitness doubts into the paddock: Martin is recovering from a wrist injury picked up at Phillip Island, Trackhouse Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez has a fractured finger, Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer is under medical assessment, and Honda’s Joan Mir has a recurring physical complaint.
Aprilia team principal Massimo Rivola was blunt about the Yamaha decision.
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“If the organizer, with all the information and documentation, says ‘let’s go’, then let’s go and that’s it,” Rivola told Crash.net.
How Marquez can clinch at Lusail
With a 44-point lead over Martin and 67 over Bezzecchi, Marquez does not need a win to be crowned. He needs to leave Lusail with enough of a cushion over both Aprilia riders that the remaining rounds cannot erase it. If he does, the season ends in the same place Aprilia once thought it had already been decided.
Lights out for the grand prix is on Sunday, 8 November at Losail International Circuit.
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