Even after his Misano pitstop debacle, Jorge Martin remains in an ultimately decent enough position to win the 2024 MotoGP title.
Given rival Pecco Bagnaia's affinity for Misano, Martin should probably steel himself for the prospect of Bagnaia eroding the eight points now comprising his title lead in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - but from there on it is effectively a coin toss, with Bagnaia's title experience and Ducati's interest in keeping the #1 plate balanced out by Martin's tendency to click into gear during the overseas leg.
But even if said coin toss comes out the wrong way for Martin, so what? There is always next ye-
Oh. Right.
Martin blundered at Misano, but the circumstances of that blunder - the fact he self-admittedly lost focus of the bigger picture of the championship battle - suggests he has been able to treat this title fight like any other, for better and for worse.
And this actually, in a roundabout way, is a positive sign for Martin's mental resolve, because a rider would be forgiven for riding nervously and trying to points-race their way to a title if they knew, for example, that the following year they will move from the grid's best bike to a bike that has suddenly become really unimpressive.
Aprilia in strife
Maverick Vinales' stupendous Grand Prix of the Americas double promised a different kind of season for Aprilia, but the manufacturer has been out of sorts as of late - and its struggles can't be regarded as a mere blip.
The bike hasn't finished within 10 seconds of the winner since the Red Bull Ring sprint a month ago. Vinales and Aleix Espargaro have combined for six points - all six coming from Espargaro - across Aragon and Misano. The entire quartet of riders, including the Trackhouse duo, have spent those two weekends in varying states of shock over how uncompetitive the Aprilia suddenly was.
And if at Aragon it made some sense - the Aprilias flickering into life when the grip picked up but dipping to untenable levels once rain washed that grip away - Aprilia collectively failing to deliver at the high-grip Misano even before rain shuffled the cards must be a significant source of worry.
The 2024 RS-GP is not a bad bike, clearly, but it seems a more and more limited bike the further we go into its lifespan. Miguel Oliveira, the sole bright spot of Aprilia's Aragon and Misano misadventures thanks to his general low-grip excellence, has been banging on about its narrow operating window for the whole year, but instead of that window widening for Oliveira it seems to have narrowed for everyone else.
Aprilia and its riders were hard at work in the post-San Marino Grand Prix test, with Vinales and Raul Fernandez particularly buoyed, the former pointing to a big step on the electronics set-up in terms of engine braking - which he saw as the source of the RS-GP's recent ills.
"For me, I have an idea that, at the end, if you don't correctly stop the bike, then when you enter the corner you are in the wrong position," he said. "So [at that point] you cannot ask the same from the bike as our competitors [do]."
But, by his own admission, Vinales is simply chasing the better feeling of the start of the season, rather than seeing definitive progress. Why he's having to do that only he and Aprilia can really know - but it fits into an all-too-familiar pattern for the firm.
Since it became a race winner again in 2022, Aprilia has recorded a negative correlation between round number and constructors' championship points score every year. It does not end seasons well - and there are theories to why, but no comprehensive answer.
So its 2024 fall-off is a bit of deja vu. So is the fact that - as each of its riders admitted in the Misano heat - it apparently retains a major temperature problem, pumping hot air straight at the rider's neck but also presumably at crucial design componentry, too.
So what do you do?
Clearly, though, this is just something a rider has to compartmentalise.
Take Marco Bezzecchi, Martin's future Aprilia team-mate, who was very believable in insisting that the RS-GP's current woes were of little concern right now.
"To be honest, no," he said when asked if he was worried. "In the situation that I'm in right now, I'm looking at right now. I want to improve, continue the improvement.
"I'm not looking around myself, I just look at me. Hopefully Tuesday at Valencia [the post-season test] the Aprilia will be good. Until that moment, honestly, it's a problem for Aleix and Maverick."
Bezzecchi is on a season-long quest to reconcile his riding style with the grippier - too grippy for his taste - new Michelin rear. The actual quality of the Aprilia machine is secondary to this quest, because it will not matter if once on the Aprilia Bezzecchi still finds himself understeering through the corners.
Martin, though, is not pace-limited right now. He is ready to win week in, week out, but the way things are tracking right now he will not have that opportunity in 2025 - or, perhaps, 2026 either.
His good friend Espargaro acknowledges this reality. "The difficult thing for Jorge will be that - I came from P20, and I reached a couple of victories, which is not easy but I got used to riding not a good bike. And he's now riding the best bike, winning races, being the fastest every session. So... to jump on the other bike that is not at the same level, it's not going to be easy.
"But his desire was to come to Aprilia, he had other options and he chose Aprilia. So, no regrets. It's not going to be easy but it's the decision he took.
"You need to go full, and Aprilia has the capacity to adapt the bike to him, and he has enough speed to be the number one in Aprilia. Nothing easy but he will make it.”
It's not like seeing Aprilia lose ground will make Martin regret the decision he took. He already knew then what he knows now about the Ducati, and he chose not to remain in the Ducati camp despite that once the works seat was yanked away.
In the lead-up to Misano, he told Spanish broadcaster DAZN that he had felt himself a "fool" once he realised Ducati would overlook him for the 'red' team again. Nothing has changed there - and the likelihood is that winning anything with Aprilia will now be worth infinitely more than a title with Ducati.
For those of us on the outside, though, a title is what matters, and this is the year. There may well be other years - he is only 26, after all, and obviously one of the quickest riders in MotoGP - but probably not 2025 or 2026.
It is a piece of information Martin surely knows better than anyone else. It is also one he has to forget until November 18.
For the rest of us, it is a cloud hanging over his season.
