> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.the-race.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Aragon Grand Prix 2026 MotoGP rider rankings - URL: https://www.the-race.com/motogp/aragon-grand-prix-2026-motogp-rider-rankings/ - Published: 2026-08-30T19:21:15.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-30T19:21:15.000Z - Description: Was the star Aragon performer the rider who won or the rider who made him work for it? Here's Val Khorounzhiy's judgement - Author: Valentin Khorounzhiy - Tags: MotoGP, #primary_homepage_feature Marc Marquez picked up the 37 points he had targeted at the Aragon Grand Prix - but was he the true star of the MotoGP weekend? ... OK, yes, he was, but there was another rider who shone every bit as bright, and it was very close between the two of them for number one honours in our rider rankings this weekend. --- ***Did Val make the right call? Let him know your thoughts and questions on*** [***this post in The Race Members' Club***](https://www.patreon.com/TheRace/posts/quiz-val-on-his-168124815?ref=the-race.com) ***and he'll reply in his post-race Q&A*** --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-KTM_PA.png) **Qualifying:** 6th **Sprint:** 4th **Grand Prix:** 2nd This isn't a perfect Acosta weekend - crashed in FP1 (as he does), crashed in Q2 (as he does), damaged his bike while dragging it back into its sprint grid slot after overshooting the mark. But I feel zero hesitation placing Acosta as the number one here, despite the exceptional job Marc Marquez did, and below is the stat that swung it for me. Acosta's fastest Aragon GP lap: 1m47.093sAcosta's 20th-fastest Aragon GP lap: 1m47.457sKTM's fastest non-Acosta Aragon GP lap: 1m47.734s ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-DUCATI_MM.png) **Qualifying:** 2nd **Sprint:** 1st **Grand Prix:** 1st Title rival Marco Bezzecchi correctly identified on Friday that Marquez was "for sure hiding a little bit". Despite Bezzecchi and Acosta's best efforts, he never really looked beatable when points were on the table this weekend. A couple of rough edges here and there - a Turn 14 mistake chasing pole in Q2, a ride height device error while divebombing Bezzecchi at the start on Sunday - never looked like anything his sheer pace wouldn't overcome. I suspect he could've won both races by a fair bit more if that were the target. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-APRILIA_MB.png) **Qualifying:** 1st **Sprint:** 3rd **Grand Prix:** 3rd The left knee gash he suffered at Assen two months ago is still troubling Bezzecchi, and was a particular hindrance at Aragon - but as far as the battle within Aprilia goes, he was in total control all weekend, leading the line in every session but FP1. It's fair to ask whether he did enough to protect his lead at Turn 1 in the sprint - Bezzecchi himself seemed to wonder exactly that - but the grand prix result seemed as good as it was ever going to get. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-LCR_JZ.png) **Qualifying:** 9th **Sprint:** 9th **Grand Prix:** 15th Awesome to have him back - and better still that he looks like he's never left. Zarco said his only physical limitation was a bit of Friday cramping that he correlated with "six coffees on Thursday" - and the timesheets looked like a rider at full fitness, though also one who still needs to get back into the groove of wheel-to-wheel racing. In the end it was incident-free and with the two long lap penalties for the crash in which he got hurt back in May finally served (and the Sunday pace was very solid, even if the long laps ruined the result). Impossible to be unhappy with this. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/Lara-CR_DM.png) **Qualifying:** 10th **Sprint:** 7th **Grand Prix:** 9th Moreira has ranked higher than this a couple of times this season, but I suspect this was actually his best weekend yet in MotoGP, or at least his most purely competitive. He under-delivered a bit on Friday and nearly denied himself Q2 by crashing late on in Q1, but his sheer pace carried him through - and for once he seemed comfortable enough doing his laps by himself, without a reference rider, which bodes incredibly well for his future. Both races were strong, though Sunday in particular required him to hang on a bit - and he felt he could've kept Enea Bastianini behind for eighth with a cleaner final lap. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-GRESINI_AM.png) **Qualifying:** 3rd **Sprint:** 2nd **Grand Prix:** 4th The younger Marquez ran his brother impressively close over one lap (faster on Friday, only a bit slower in Q2) and in the sprint - but had no answer in the longer distance. His grand prix was partially determined by a messy run through the opening corners, including a missed gear through Turns 2-3, but Bezzecchi and Acosta were probably out of reach anyway - and Marc definitively so. Nonetheless, he continues to impress. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-GRESINI_FA.png) **Qualifying:** 11th **Sprint:** 6th **Grand Prix:** 6th Another injury returnee albeit from a shorter absence, Aldeguer was firmly in Ducati's B-tier this weekend - far off the Marquez brothers but probably stronger than the others - and seemed happy enough with that. He found the low-grip Aragon wasn't punishing him physically, and seemed to have good pace - though he underwhelmed in Q2, so had to work hard for a pair of sixth places (which seemed about right for his performance). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-PRAMAC_JM.png) **Qualifying:** 13th **Sprint:** 10th **Grand Prix:** 11th Crashing on Friday afternoon while trying to stick with Marc Marquez for a laptime was the only bit of tangible underperformance from Miller all weekend, as he really impressed otherwise. Equipped with an "old-new concept" swingarm, Miller led the Yamahas in qualifying and was pace-y in both races, though on Sunday ultimately had no answer to the straightline speed of the KTMs late on. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-APRILIA_JM.png) **Qualifying:** 5th **Sprint:** 5th **Grand Prix:** 5th Martin's track record at Motorland Aragon in grand prix racing is unremarkable, and he didn't much improve it here - but also kept the weekend from being a disaster. He plainly wasn't competitive relative to team-mate Bezzecchi but picked up a decent chunk of points, despite a very robust battle with Aprilia stablemate Raul Fernandez in the sprint. Martin admitted this was "a really bad weekend, I think the worst almost of the season in terms of speed" - yet in that context was happy with the yield, and believed his struggles were more track- and low-grip-specific rather than a recurrence of his mid-year woes with the RS-GP's front end. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-YAMAHA_AR.png) **Qualifying:** 19th **Sprint:** 12th **Grand Prix:** 13th The second-best Yamaha rider this weekend, Rins quietly put together maybe his best weekend of the season - never the lead M1 rider but never particularly far from it. He was competitive enough to be actively disappointed with a feisty enough P13 in the end, feeling he had the pace - but not the engine power - to at least beat former team-mate Joan Mir. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-HONDA_JM.png) **Qualifying:** 15th **Sprint:** 16th **Grand Prix:** 12th Mir found his usual strength - braking - "a nightmare" this weekend, so settled into a fairly anonymous, unremarkable rhythm. He was out of contention in the sprint right away via Turn 3 contact with Bastianini that relegated him to last, in which Bastianini may have been slightly more at fault but Mir anyway seemed a touch too ambitious. In any case, the grand prix itself showed there was just not much on offer. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-HONDA_LM.png) **Qualifying:** 18th **Sprint:** DNF **Grand Prix:** 14th Marini hopes and believes his side of the Honda garage has found something extra in qualifying trim - but wasn't quite able to exploit it this weekend. He was again solid on Friday but just on the wrong end of the Q2 cut-off, then again disappointing in Q1. A crash early in the sprint raised eyebrows as being un-Marini-like and was quickly determined to be a consequence of contact with Bastianini for which Marini bore very little responsibility. He did a reasonable job bouncing back on Sunday, though the extra two points are fairly immaterial. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-VR46_FD.png) **Qualifying:** 7th **Sprint:** DNF **Grand Prix:** 7th A weekend that feels like it's snuffed out any realistic chance of Di Giannantonio being a major player in this title race from here on out - given Ducati matched up well with Aprilia at Aragon and yet he just couldn't capitalise. A crash from eighth in the sprint was a symptom rather than the biggest issue. He hinted that he believed this was down to a bad rear tyre, but much of the weekend beyond that just felt a little off - and Di Giannantonio indicated there have been various 'need-to-know basis' disruptions that cost him both at Aragon and Silverstone. Di Giannantonio wants to believe that even weekends like this one can still keep his title bid on track as long as he picks up some points - but I am not particularly optimistic. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-TECH3_EB.png) **Qualifying:** 16th **Sprint:** 14th **Grand Prix:** 8th Bastianini looked very slow on Friday - and complained of the rear pushing the front again - and was then involved in a couple of early incidents in the sprint (with the Honda factory duo) that he might have had a decent bit of culpability for, though were not enough to penalise. He was struggling badly for front tyre longevity but seemed to find an improvement on Sunday, allowing for that classic Bastianini charge - but still in a different part of the race to where KTM stablemate Acosta was operating. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-TECH3_PE.png) **Qualifying:** 20th **Sprint:** 17th **Grand Prix:** 16th Espargaro found the second part of his return to the current 1000cc bikes a little easier at Aragon - but maybe not as much easier as you'd have expected. He was again fairly anonymous relative to his late-2025 heroics, not terribly far from KTM stablemates Brad Binder or Bastianini but with Acosta completely out of range. The picture was slightly better over one lap than race distances. In the sprint, he was spooked by the Marini crash and Fabio Quartararo engine blow-up, while on Sunday he found he "doesn't know how to act" with this bike right now on used tyres. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-TRACKHOUSE_RF.png) **Qualifying:** 4th **Sprint:** 8th **Grand Prix:** DNF Fernandez was in the top eight in every session until the grand prix, where he had an unspecified (seemingly gearbox-related) mechanical failure while running sixth. That moment was also the best he'd felt through the weekend, after some Sunday warm-up set-up tweaks, before which Fernandez wasn't really in the groove with his Aprilia despite some decent single-lap efforts. There was potential in the grand prix to significantly bump up his ranking, but as it turned out his Aragon GP was mostly notable for roughing up Martin in the early going into the sprint before running out of speed. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-PRAMAC_TR.png) **Qualifying:** 21st **Sprint:** 13th **Grand Prix:** DNF In the more familiar confines of Aragon (relative to the Sachsenring and Silverstone) this was a much better outing for Razgatlioglu, a 13-time podium finisher at the track in World Superbikes... though only a one-time winner. Podiums and wins weren't on the table here but Razgatlioglu was acceptably competitive among the Yamahas - though found it difficult to overtake or avoid mistakes. One such mistake snuffed out a shot at points on Sunday, when - already struggling badly to maintain consistent pace due to the front tyre drop - he crashed with Zarco in pursuit. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-KTM_BB.png) **Qualifying:** 14th **Sprint:** 15th **Grand Prix:** 10th Binder's farewell tour in MotoGP is playing out with few highlights. Aragon was never going to be one - what Acosta was doing the other KTM riders clearly could not do - but Binder also admitted execution let him down. Qualifying was reasonable for the pace (better than a disappointing Friday 'Q0' effort) but he had several offs in the sprint, then was barged down to 20th on Sunday in a cascade of overtakes that began with a Turn 11 error. Tenth from 20th is not bad. Tenth when your team-mate is second, 25 seconds up the road, is rough. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-APRILIA_LS.png) **Qualifying:** 22nd **Sprint:** 19th **Grand Prix:** 17th Like Espargaro, Savadori has found the adjustment from his regular 850cc/Pirelli test work to this stand-in gig very complicated - and unsurprisingly he was last in every session, until the grand prix in which Quartararo dropped behind him and never repassed. Ultimately, it's nice that Trackhouse and Aprilia didn't leave Ai Ogura's bike vacant this weekend, but it didn't make a huge competitive difference. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-YAMAHA_FQ.png) **Qualifying:** 17th **Sprint:** DNF **Grand Prix:** 18th Quartararo and Yamaha's 'post-divorce' run in 2026 hasn't been so bad - but this was one weekend where both may have been better off had he stayed at home. Unhappy to do multiple runs with a new chassis that he insisted was no upgrade and describing himself as "more of a test rider this weekend", Quartararo didn't qualify particularly well and didn't race particularly well at all. He is not culpable for the poor sprint, which was plagued by an engine issue even before the V4 finally gave out in smoke, but was a calamity in the GP - going off the track multiple times to eventually finish 52s off the winner. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-DUCATI_PB.png) **Qualifying:** 8th **Sprint:** 11th **Grand Prix:** DNF A second profoundly bad weekend in a row, with Bagnaia pointing to a common culprit in having "completely zero" rear grip. Saturday morning's race pace session FP2 was his only truly good session (Q1 and Q2 were alright), but he was badly outmatched in both races and was already struggling for tyre life when he lost the rear and crashed out of the grand prix. He's still having work done on the arm that required surgery during the break but says, to his credit, that this is "not affecting the speed", of which there is very, very little right now. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/08/ara-VR46_FM.png) **Qualifying:** 12th **Sprint:** 18th **Grand Prix:** DNF A very poor weekend that never looked like much of anything, save for a glimpse of promise on Friday when Morbidelli did get into Q2 - again favouring a fast-lap reference from VR46 team-mate Di Giannantonio on track. He had a Q2 lap deleted for yellow flags that would've put him a row higher - but anyway just wasn't terribly competitive on race pace. He went off at Turn 12 early in the sprint and didn't have the pace to make any progress back up, then went down early on Sunday while in the pack - having gone "too aggressive on throttle", with the rear coming around.