An Aprilia 1-2 in MotoGP's Assen sprint as expected - but the ‘wrong' Aprilias for the factory squad's championship hopes.

It's a day of nuanced winners and losers, where some have more to smile about than the results suggest but it's the opposite for others.

Winner: Trackhouse (1st & 2nd)

It's not all that long ago that what is now the Trackhouse team was the sick man of the paddock, then running under the RNF banner, underfunded and at war with its own title sponsor.

As a result, it absolutely should not be underestimated what team boss extraordinaire Davide Brivio has done, under the banner of NASCAR guru team owner Justin Marks, to turn around the squad and deliver it a MotoGP one-two in what is, in the grand scheme of things, a very short period of time indeed.

Assen's sprint race isn't a one-off, either, but something that Trackhouse has been building towards all season long. Sure, the excellent Aprilia RS-GP helps, and no team has ever complained about an influx of extra budget, but it's Brivio's management that has turned what is, at its core, still the same group of people, into race winners.

They believed in Raul Fernandez when plenty were quick to dismiss him (even after his extraordinary Moto2 career) and helped transform Ai Ogura into a much more complete racer than he was even a few months ago.

The organisation that Brivio will hand over to Francesco Guidotti at the end of 2026 is far removed from what it was when Trackhouse first tore off the RNF Racing stickers and ran in all-black fairings at the 2023 Valencia post-race test! - Simon Patterson

Loser: Factory Aprilia (4th & 5th)

You could see this as a tiny win for the works Aprilia team because both Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi inched very slightly further ahead of Marc Marquez in the championship despite their small but costly mistakes and slightly disappointing race pace.

But the much stronger argument is that this was a massive missed opportunity.

This is a circuit where Aprilia's looked in control from the moment practice started, and Marc Marquez and Ducati are on the back foot. But next time out is the Sachsenring, where you can pretty much hand Marquez the 37 points now.

The Assen races have to be Aprilia 1-2s. The sprint was - but it was the wrong Aprilias. The ones actually fighting for a title will rue the wasted points. - Matt Beer

Loser: Pecco Bagnaia (7th)

I mulled this being a Loser entry for the whole Ducati team, but ultimately Marc Marquez - at probably his worst circuit on the calendar - got away with doing a race in what he called "safe mode" and only losing one and two points respectively to his two main title rivals. That's decent damage limitation for leg one of an Assen weekend where he's not at his best and neither is his bike.

But for Pecco Bagnaia, this could've been so much better than seventh.

He was pretty sure he had the race pace to match Fabio Di Giannantonio's progress through the Aprilias towards the front. He just couldn't use it because he made a bad start and then - on one of the few weekends in their time together when he's been the faster team-mate - got stuck behind a not especially helpful Marquez for too long.

And then the track limits penalty he got on the final lap while trying desperately to relieve Martin of fifth dropped him back behind Marquez again after all. - MB

Winner: Raul Fernandez (1st)

Yes it's taken way too long to get to the position where Fernandez is a reliable MotoGP winner and frontrunner. But now that's what he is and maybe none of what (slowly, erratically) came before actually matters.

He used the "bad energy" from being enraged at losing pole to a track limits lap deletion ("they are sometimes making our sport very boring") as mental fuel for the incisive sprint performance he then produced to fight through the rest of the Aprilias and fend off Di Giannantonio's mid-race charge.

And whereas after his last sprint win at Mugello four weeks ago Fernandez sounded highly downbeat about his chances of staying at Trackhouse for 2027, his mood on that front sounded much, much brighter today. Rightly so - why drop someone performing like this?- MB

Winner: Fabio Di Giannantonio (3rd)

Asked if being top Ducati rider felt special to him today, Di Giannantonio replied "could be at the end of the year".

And he's entitled to say that because he's just closed to within 22 points of Bezzecchi's championship lead, and is third in the standings as the top Ducati rider.

In terms of reliably awesome pace at race after race, Marquez is obviously still Ducati's best hope.

But right now Di Giannantonio holds that spot statistically, and given how often he's right with - or ahead of - the factory Desmosedicis, he's starting to feel like a genuinely realistic title contender. - MB

Loser: Joan Mir (DNF)

When you make it into Q2 against the odds on a weekend when your manufacturer just isn't really on the pace, don't crash by yourself at the first corner of the race.

That is all. - MB

Winner: Enea Bastianini (8th)

This is less about the eighth place and more about how long Enea Bastianini hung with what was effectively the lead train as he tagged right along with the factory Ducatis.

Add in finishing ahead of KTM's usual lead star Pedro Acosta after his mid-race mistake, no KTMs abruptly cutting out in the race having done so plentifully in practice and qualifying due to what was described as a sensor issue, and seeing the Trackhouse team he's poised to join for 2027 getting a one-two, and it's a pretty decent day for Bastianini. - MB

Loser: Toprak Razgatlioglu (17th)

We've got accustomed to seeing Toprak Razgatlioglu holding his own among the other Yamahas in the MotoGP midfield and looking like he could be a frontrunner on a better bike.

But today was a genuinely off the pace day - last in qualifying behind even recent returnee Cal Crutchlow and also three tenths of a second off Yamaha tester Augusto Fernandez, and then 17th and nearly four seconds behind the next-worst Yamaha in the race.

He put his woes down to not nailing a good electronics set-up, leaving him with a bike that "wasn't stopping and wasn't good on acceleration". - MB

Winner: Fabio Quartararo (10th)

Fabio Quartararo's 2026 moods are pretty standard and there was no noticeable celebration at his return to the top 10 today.

But even if you feel he's not always giving his utmost while waiting for the Yamaha exit door to officially open, either this was a better track for the bike or Quartararo felt it was worth giving it more of a go, and the result was once again a top 10 that no one else on an M1 looked anywhere near capable of. - MB

Loser: Gresini (13th & DNS)

A sad one to end on, as injuries are turning 2026 into such a shadow of Gresini's glorious 2025 even though at its peak it's barely any less competitive despite Ducati no longer being clearly the benchmark bike.

Alex Marquez is managing his battered body the best he can, sitting out qualifying entirely, finishing the sprint a careful 13th then displaying the arm gouges from his Friday crash to the media and saying he'll make a pragmatic decision on his participation in the grand prix on Sunday morning.

And now Fermin Aldeguer is back on the sidelines with fractured vertebra having already had his sophomore season badly compromised by his winter leg break.

All of which means Gresini has barely had any races this year with two fully fit riders and definitely won't until at least after the summer break. - MB