Márquez Strikes First at Misano as Bezzecchi Keeps the Pressure On
Marco Bezzecchi had pole position, a home crowd and probably most of Emilia-Romagna willing him forwards. Marc Márquez had second on the grid, a medium rear tyre and the irritating habit of being extremely good at this sort of thing.
There are worse places to have a motorcycle race than Misano. September sunshine, grandstands full of Italians, Valentino Rossi knocking about in the background and Marco Bezzecchi on pole after becoming the first MotoGP rider ever to put a 1m29s lap around the place. All very romantic. Then Marc Márquez arrived at Turn One and spoiled it. Again.
For the second Sprint in succession, Bezzecchi started from pole and Márquez started alongside him. For the second Sprint in succession, the Ducati was in front before everybody had properly settled into their seats. There is probably a lesson in there somewhere.
Bezzecchi's launch wasn't dreadful. He didn't miss a gear, nod off or suddenly decide to inspect the pit wall. Márquez simply got away marginally better, claimed the inside and made Turn One his.
Thirteen laps later, it was still his.
The interesting bit came before the lights even went out. Most of the grid had looked at Misano's enormous grip, relatively gentle degradation and 13-lap Sprint distance and reached the entirely sensible conclusion that the soft rear tyre was the obvious thing to bolt in. Márquez did not.
After watching the soft rear load the front heavily on the Ducatis during qualifying, he made a late switch to the medium. Jorge Martín did the same. Bezzecchi stuck with the soft. Fifteen of the 21 riders chose the soft. Marc Márquez, as is occasionally his way, looked at what everyone else was doing and wandered off in the opposite direction. Annoyingly, he was right.
Initially, it looked as though he might simply disappear. By lap five the gap to Bezzecchi was over a second, and the reigning champion appeared to have the race exactly where he wanted it.
Bez had other ideas. His problem was one Aprilia has seen before: with the bike heavy on fuel, he struggled for stability at the beginning of the Sprint, particularly with the rear pushing the front. Once the fuel burned away and the bike started feeling more like his, the lap times came with it.
Suddenly the gap started coming down. One second became eight tenths, then six, then about half a second. Misano woke up. Márquez had spent the first half of the race looking comfortable; now there was a black Aprilia getting conspicuously larger behind him.
This, finally, looked interesting. So Márquez set the fastest lap of the race. Of course he did.
With Bezzecchi getting close enough to start thinking seriously about an attack, Márquez produced a 1m30.7 on lap 11, stretched the gap back out and effectively closed the conversation. It was less a response than somebody reaching across and switching the radio off.
Bezzecchi kept pushing, but the chance had gone. Márquez crossed the line just over a second clear to take his sixth Sprint victory of the season and another significant chunk out of the championship lead.
There shouldn't be too much disappointment on the other side of the Aprilia garage. Bezzecchi had produced the lap of the weekend in qualifying, was comfortably better than he had been in the early laps once the fuel came down and became the only rider capable of making Márquez look over his shoulder. Second was also his best Sprint result of the season.
More importantly, this didn't have the slightly avoidable feel of Aragón, where he admitted afterwards he'd perhaps left the door a little too politely open at Turn One. At Misano he braked hard, protected the line and Márquez was simply better into the first corner. Sometimes motorcycle racing is annoyingly straightforward.
The encouraging bit for Sunday is that Bez's pace at the end was real. Sort out those opening laps with the full tank and the Grand Prix suddenly becomes extremely interesting.
Fabio Di Giannantonio initially stood in his way, but Martín eventually got through at Turns Five and Six and came home third. He still lost five points to Márquez, which trims his championship advantage to 14, while Bezzecchi is now only 22 behind. But given how Friday began, third probably counts as fairly efficient damage limitation.
Martín's solution was also wonderfully MotoGP. The bike felt as though it was about to lose the front under braking, so he decided the answer was essentially to keep braking anyway. Motorcycle racers remain a very peculiar branch of humanity.
Di Giannantonio held fourth ahead of Alex Márquez, while Pedro Acosta took sixth after becoming involved in a wonderfully unnecessary early argument with Fermín Aldeguer. The pair spent several corners elbowing one another, ran wide and generously allowed Alex Márquez through while they were occupied.
Raúl Fernández also profited before Aldeguer eventually came home eighth. Acosta later described the whole thing as, essentially, a stupid waste of time. Which is fair. It was also quite entertaining. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Luca Marini took the final Sprint point in ninth for Honda, ahead of Johann Zarco.
Fabio Quartararo's afternoon ended rather less happily. Trying to get underneath Diogo Moreira, the Yamaha ran out of room and Quartararo went down. He remounted and finished last, although the slightly bizarre consolation was that his pace afterwards remained comfortably the best of the Yamahas. So at least the speed is buried in there somewhere. Finding a way of using it without visiting the scenery remains the outstanding administrative detail.
And then there's Pecco Bagnaia. Thirteenth. At Misano. On the factory Ducati. Having qualified 14th.
There isn't really a joke required. Bagnaia has won here before, has completed approximately enough laps around Misano to qualify for Italian residency, and yet spent Saturday watching another GP26 win while he fought outside the points.
At the other end of the Ducati garage, meanwhile, Márquez has now won three races in succession when Sprints and Grands Prix are combined. Fourteen points separate him from Martín. Twenty-two separate Martín from Bezzecchi.
Misano began with the feeling that Aprilia might have the best motorcycle here. It still might. But Saturday supplied another reminder that having the best motorcycle and beating Marc Márquez are not necessarily the same job.
Bezzecchi was quicker late. He was brilliant in qualifying. He has the home crowd. And over 27 laps on Sunday, the fuel-load problem that hurt him early in the Sprint becomes considerably more complicated, but the soft-versus-medium calculation changes too.
So this one is not done. Not remotely.
Márquez won Saturday. Bez made him work for it. And Jorge Martín is still leading the World Championship while the other two edge steadily towards him.
Sunday should be rather good.
