- Marc Marquez says Marco Bezzecchi misjudged the pace of the leader when the two collided on lap four of the Qatar sprint, per Motorsport.com.
- Bezzecchi rejects the Indonesia 2025 comparison Marquez drew and says anger would waste his energy.
- Marquez leads the MotoGP championship by 79 points over Bezzecchi and can clinch the title on Sunday if he wins the Grand Prix and Jorge Martin scores nothing.
Marquez Hands Bezzecchi the Favorite’s Tag After the Clash That Fired His Airbag
Marc Marquez ended his Saturday media briefing in Qatar with a prediction about the rider he had just hit at Turn 1.
“Tomorrow, if nothing strange happens, Marco will win the race. Because he’s faster than everybody.”
The man who said it leads the championship by 79 points over that rider. Questions followed a sprint in which his airbag fired, his rival ended up on the ground, and the stewards took no further action. Marquez won the sprint. Bezzecchi, the pole sitter and the pre-race favorite, crashed out. Now the winner calls the loser the favorite for the main event, and both men have given their own account of what happened on lap four.
Lap Four at Lusail
The sprint at Lusail needed two starts. Pecco Bagnaia crashed on the opening lap and the red flag stopped the race. Bagnaia was declared conscious by the medical team. Bezzecchi had led before the stoppage, with a new lap record behind him from qualifying, where he beat Marquez to pole.
The race restarted over 10 laps. Marquez got the better launch and took the lead into Turn 1. On lap two, Bezzecchi tried to pass for the lead at Turn 15, and Marquez held on around the outside of the last corner to keep the position.
Then came lap four. Marquez entered Turn 1 in front and ran wide. Bezzecchi, who had gone into the corner behind him, moved into the gap that opened. Marquez came back toward the racing line to reach his late apex, and the two bikes met there. Marquez seemed surprised to find the Aprilia on his inside. Bezzecchi slid off. Marquez stayed on his Ducati with his airbag deployed, and he kept the lead.
The FIM stewards looked at it and decided no further action was needed. They treated it as a racing incident. That did not end the questions in the paddock.
Marquez Points to Indonesia and the Helicopter Camera
When Marquez spoke in parc ferme after the win, he did not mention Bezzecchi once when asked about the collision. His first words went elsewhere.
“I mean, it was a strange sprint race, especially with the red flag,”
he said, and he turned to his teammate.
“We hope and we wish that Pecco is OK, because it was a nasty crash.”
“But apart from that, I was super concentrated; I defended in the best way possible.”
“It’s true that on that Turn 1, when I had the impact, even my airbag deployed.”
“For that reason, Jorge attacked me because it took some time to come back to the normal way.”
“But apart from that, everything was fine, perfect. When I opened a gap, 0.5s, 0.8s, I tried to control the race. And it’s 12 very important points.”
The fuller view came later in the media briefing. Marquez compared the clash with the start of the 2025 Indonesian Grand Prix, when Bezzecchi hit him from behind while carrying more speed into a fast corner. The man from Cervera put the blame on how Bezzecchi read the situation.
“For me, it was clear,” said Marquez. “If you check the helicopter [cameras], my Turn 1 was exactly the same on that lap and the next ones. I always go a bit wide and try to close the line.”
“It was similar to Indonesia. Bezzecchi is steps faster than everybody here. He didn’t realise that we are slow like we are. I mean, we are fast, but he is much faster!”
He made the same point in other words.
“Marco was faster than me in the practice and in the race,” Marquez said. “He tried to overtake on that Turn 1, I didn’t make anything strange, and just when I had the contact, my airbag deployed, and I did some corners struggling a lot.”
Marquez was asked how close he had come to falling, as the rider on the outside is typically the loser in such a situation.
“I don’t know,” said the man from Cervera. “I just felt the contact and poof, [the airbag] deployed. But I don’t know if my bike was shaking a lot or not.”
“I was super concentrated. And when I’m concentrated, I don’t feel what the bike is doing.”
“[After the airbag deployed] I was not able to ride the bike for three or four corners. When Martin overtook me, it was not a great surprise for my race.”
Bezzecchi Declines the Fight
Bezzecchi wanted to avoid controversy and keep his focus on Sunday. He told TNT Sports first how his evening had gone.
“Not the sprint I wanted, of course, after a very good qualifying, a very good weekend,”
he said, and then described the contact.
“You saw already the images. At the end, I tried to keep my line, and the contact happened, so at the end I couldn’t really do anything to avoid it.”
“At the end, the one that crashed was me, but it’s like this. So we move forward, and we try to bounce back tomorrow.”
His race had gone wrong at the restart, he said, where he lost the place to Marquez.
“The first start before the red flag was good. In the second, unfortunately, I had a bit of a wheelie, I lost a bit of the acceleration and lost the place to Marc.”
“Then we started a very good battle.”
“My pace was good to try to fight for the win. I had to risk it, I had to do everything to try to make a good result. Unfortunately, it was not like this, so we will try again tomorrow.”
Bezzecchi did not accept the Indonesia comparison.
“It’s not super fair to take out one completely different episode,” he said. “But, I respect what he says. I personally don’t agree because it’s completely different. But it doesn’t matter too much right now.”
“In the end, I tried my line, I was on the inside and a second later I was on the ground. So, it’s something that can happen.”
Asked if he was angry, he said there was no point in such a reaction.
“At the end, I would be wasting my energy for nothing. It’s out of my control. It’s not something that I have to decide… so, let’s try to keep our focus on the race for tomorrow.”
The Garage Did Not Stay Quiet
Bezzecchi stayed calm. His boss did not. Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola reacted negatively to the stewards’ decision in the team’s garage, and he was seen sarcastically clapping Marquez when a replay of the crash was shown. That was a gesture seen in the garage, not a statement from the team.
The sprint carried a second Aprilia story. Bezzecchi’s teammate Jorge Martin, racing with an injury, moved up through the field after the restart. He passed Fabio Di Giannantonio at Turn 2 and tried to pass Marquez for the lead at Turn 6, then lost out again into the next corner. Martin arrived in Qatar on a broken wrist and finished the sprint third, after Di Giannantonio went past him late for second.
Marquez had a second shock on that same lap.
“That was not a good surprise! It’s true that when I had that moment [with Bezzecchi], then Martin on the same lap I think attacked me in Turn 6,”
Marquez recalled.
“Honestly speaking, I didn’t expect him in that position. But from that point I say, “Okay, now I must take some risk,” and it’s when I overtook him again, and I started to attack.”
Inside one Aprilia garage, then, sat a rider on the ground, a teammate who challenged for the lead, and a CEO unhappy with the verdict. The Martin and Aprilia relationship has its own history, covered in why Aprilia turned against Martin.
What Sunday Holds
The sprint rearranged the title math. Before the weekend, Marquez led Martin by 44 points and Bezzecchi by 67, with three rounds left. He knew the numbers on Thursday.
“I know the numbers. I have to score eight more than one and 30 more than the other,” he said.
The sprint win, worth 12 points, pushed the gap to Martin to 49 and the gap to Bezzecchi to 79. Marquez can win the championship on Sunday if he wins the Grand Prix and Martin does not score. Bezzecchi, third in the standings, has to cut the gap below 74 on Sunday to keep any hope alive, with a maximum of 74 points then left at Portimao and Valencia.
The title would be his eighth premier class crown. He won his seventh in 2025, and Giacomo Agostini holds eight. Marquez, who overturned a 102 point deficit to take this lead, spoke about Sunday as a rider short on speed.
“I would like [to win the title at the first opportunity], I cannot lie, but it’s not the day to take that risk,”
he told TNT Sports.
“I mean, we [would] need to win the race, but we don’t have the rhythm to win the race.”
“The most important is that today we gained an advantage against both the second- and third-place riders.”
“Tomorrow we will try to keep going with the same concentration and the same mentality.”
“Then we will see, but I expect a very difficult race, especially because Aprilia in the long race distance are very fast.”
Bezzecchi starts the Grand Prix from pole again. Marquez leads the standings, the argument about Turn 1 is still open, and the two riders will share a grid on Sunday at Lusail. If Marquez is right, the Aprilia rider wins and the title decision waits for Portimao. Bezzecchi has said he will keep his focus on the race. The Grand Prix is the next place the two meet.
