The mark of a true MotoGP champion? One who’s able to apply an old-school approach to solve a new-age problem.
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Add a dash of cunning and opportunism to outrageous talent, and we get to Sunday at Sepang, when Marc Marquez – 102 points off the championship lead after round seven in Italy in May – won in Malaysia for the first time in eight years to set up championship match point next weekend in Qatar, the antepenultimate round of the season.
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In just about any business in 2026, the focus is on quantity over quality. Engagements to chase, metrics to hit. But not for Marquez, the grid’s longest-tenured rider who came in as a tornado in 2013, and has morphed into the grid’s most cerebral, calculating rider since.
Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi (11 podiums this season) and the Italian’s teammate Jorge Martin (nine) have more Grand Prix podiums than Marquez this season. KTM’s Pedro Acosta, second to Marquez on Sunday, has the same number – seven.
What they don’t have is Marquez’s unerring arrow.
The Spaniard’s seventh podium this season was his seventh win; the most recent time he stood on a Grand Prix rostrum and wasn’t on the top step was 14 months ago in Japan in September 2025, when he was content to finish second to Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia to score the points he needed to secure the world title.
It’s not been a smooth year, nor has it been his most consistent. But for Marquez, 2026 has been about grabbing on and not letting go when there’s been big points to score.
Sunday, at a track where he’s won just twice in MotoGP and not since 2018, was a case in point.
Stealing the lead from pole-sitter and younger brother Alex Marquez at the first turn – and surviving an optimistic lunge from the Gresini Ducati rider at Turn 4 – Marc Marquez was methodical, somewhat cautious.
For the entire race, he deliberately didn’t use his Ducati’s rear ride-height device coming onto the two long straights, trying to baby his soft-compound Michelin rear tyre on a track scorched to 54 degrees by an unrelenting sun.
A tenth of a second gained here, another there, and after eight laps, his lead hit one second for the first time as Alex Marquez – the 2025 Sepang winner labouring with a right shoulder injury from his Catalunya crash earlier this year that he’ll undergo surgery for on Monday – held up the pursuing pack.
Fast-forward 12 laps and with Martin at home in Andorra with a fractured right wrist courtesy of his sprint race crash in Australia, and Bezzecchi bullied back to sixth by Aprilia stablemate Ai Ogura and KTM’s Enea Bastianini in the final two laps, Marquez’s championship lead was 44 points, his biggest of the year by a mile.
With his primary obstacles to an eighth premier-class title either absent or ambushed, Sunday was the time to strike with quality, calculated cunning.
“This weekend, I attacked from the first lap of (Friday practice) … I gave everything, and that was the key,” he said.
“When I saw Jorge (Martin) was out, I said this weekend was time to do it.
“I was trying to control, especially the first three laps. Those laps for me were crucial to save the rear tyre, and Alex used the rear tyre a lot because he was defending against the other riders. I opened a gap and in the end, honestly speaking, I felt super good. My tyre life was great.”
The maths equation is now simple. Should Marquez outscore Martin by 30 points next weekend – he outscored the absent Spaniard by 34 in Malaysia, and there’s no guarantee Martin will even be fit enough to race in Qatar – and Bezzecchi by eight points, the championship – which looked all but certain to rumble on to the final round in Valencia in late November – will be done with Portugal and Valencia still to come.
Asked afterwards what he would have said to someone if, after his crash in May’s French Grand Prix and subsequent right shoulder surgery to remove a piece of metalwork from a previous operation that was impinging on his radial nerve, he’d been told he’d win in Malaysia and have a championship match point in November, Marquez just laughed.
“I’d ask how many beers did you have?,” he grinned.
“The first part of the season, I was struggling a lot for the nerve problem. But sometimes you need to step back a bit, and the crash of Le Mans … that was the correct moment. From that moment, it was more adaptation than rehabilitation because I tried to adapt my riding style.
“I’m closer, but it’s not done. I’m just riding. I’m trying to flow. I’m riding in a different way than last year. I’m worse in the left corners and better in the right corners.
“But I am still able to be fast.”
Jack Miller erupts at pit crew | 00:45
‘DON’T WANT TO GO’: AUSSIES HONESTY BEFORE YAMAHA
Next weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix will go ahead without Yamaha, after the Japanese company sensationally withdrew its two teams from the 20th round of the season because of the political instability in the Middle East and the potential escalation of the military conflict that already postponed the event from its scheduled April date.
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After the sport’s riders met at the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island last weekend to express their concerns over safety of travelling to the region, multiple meetings took place in Sepang between the sport’s promoters MSEG (MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group), the 11 teams and 22 riders, with Australia’s Jack Miller one of the few riders willing to speak publicly after Sunday’s race about the possibility of travelling to Doha for next weekend’s race.
A little over two hours after the completion of Sunday’s Grand Prix, a statement from Yamaha – which runs the factory Yamaha team with Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins, plus the Pramac Yamaha team Miller rides for – said the company would not participate in the event.
“Following its latest assessment of the situation in the Middle East, Yamaha has not identified sufficient grounds to change its existing company-wide travel restrictions,” the statement read.
“As a result, Yamaha has informed MotoGP Group about its decision not to participate in the 2026 Qatar Grand Prix. This decision reflects Yamaha’s assessment of the information currently available and is independent of the measures implemented by MotoGP Group and the event organizer.
“Yamaha remains fully committed to MotoGP and looks forward to returning to competition at the Portuguese Grand Prix.”
The 11 teams run by five manufacturers (Yamaha, Honda, Aprilia, Ducati and KTM) in the series are bound by contracts with the championship, and take responsibility for ensuring their riders participating in the events.
Speaking to the press before Yamaha’s announcement that it would not travel to Qatar – and after the three riders in the post-event press conference (Marc Marquez, Pedro Acosta and Alex Marquez) refused to answer questions on the subject – Miller was one of few riders to offer a view.
“I don’t want to go, like everybody,” Miller said after finishing last of the 16 riders who crossed the line after 20 laps on Sunday.
“There’s 19 of us that don’t want to go there, I don’t think we should be racing a motorcycle in those sorts of conditions. We’ve made our opinion very clear on that, and we’ll see what the decision is. As riders, we’ve united and done the best we can what with ammunition we have, not only for us as riders but also for other people in the championship. If you speak to 50 per cent of the paddock, nobody wants to go.
“I understand their (position) as the promoter and I love Qatar, but the surrounding area is the issue that we have. To go and put on a global event, we’re not hiding. We’re not hiding our location or date and time we will be at said location. If anyone does want to make an example or do whatever they do …
“The biggest thing for us as riders is liability. Somebody’s got to be liable for it. You (MSEG) want us to go there, put your name on it if you believe it’s safe. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that. They can attack us at any angle, financially, on the sporting side with our licences and so on, and also to the teams. We’ve been pretty quiet about it until now, but the fact of the matter is when we’re being asked what we’re doing, it’s not up to us at the end of the day.
“We’re a number in this game, and there’s 19-20 of us that are pretty adamant we don’t want to go.”
In response to Yamaha’s statement – and after fellow Japanese company Honda confirmed it would be participating in Qatar next weekend – MotoGP Group issued a statement that expressed it was “disappointed by Yamaha’s decision”.
“While we recognise the team is subject to a broader corporate policy restricting travel to the Middle East, we do not believe this decision reflects the extensive assurances provided to all championship stakeholders,” the statement read, indicating that Yamaha would be subject to unspecified “sporting consequences”.
“Following consultation with the State of Qatar, Lusail International Circuit, independent safety advisers and MotoGP’s own ongoing risk assessment process, MotoGP has not received any information that would warrant a change to the current plans for the event.
“We communicated that position, together with the latest available information, to all Manufacturers and Teams today and welcome the confirmation from the remainder of the grid that they will compete in Qatar, and we thank them for that commitment.
“In addition to the contractual implications of Yamaha’s decision for its agreements with MotoGP and IRTA, Yamaha’s non-participation also carries sporting implications, with any sporting consequences to be managed by the FIM in accordance with the Championship regulations.”
With Yamaha’s four riders out for next weekend, Ducati’s Alex Marquez to miss after shoulder surgery and the participation of Aprilia’s Jorge Martin (right wrist) and Raul Fernandez (broken right index finger) in doubt, the MotoGP grid could feature just 15 riders in Qatar.