BEZZECCHI SAYS MISANO PRESSURE DIDN’T CAUSE HIS TURN 13 CRASH

Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi said his San Marino crash “hurts a lot” after he went out of the lead on Sunday, but insisted it wasn’t caused by pressure at home. He denied suggestions he put too much on himself, pointing instead to his own mistake at Turn 13 after a positive start from pole with a record-breaking qualifying lap. “Unfortunately, everything was going well, but I did a mistake in Turn 13 and I lost the front,” he said.

The incident came after a promising opening to the race, with Bezzecchi initially looking like he had learned from Saturday’s Sprint at Misano. Marc Marquez had won that Sprint by passing the Aprilia rider into Turn 1, and Bezzecchi appeared to have corrected the issue on Sunday by defending successfully at the same corner. However, once he had seen off that threat at Turn 1, he threw the advantage away—first by losing the front into Turn 13, ending his San Marino GP before the end of Lap 1.

Bezzecchi also addressed the wider mental side of being a title protagonist. He said that if he didn’t want the pressure that comes with MotoGP’s top fight, he would have chosen a different path. “If it had been easy, everyone would have done it,” he told Italian TV. “And if I hadn’t wanted this type of pressure, I would have worked in my dad’s repair shop. Instead, I’m trying to be a rider. So, that’s life. We need to deal with this too.” He added that he never believed he had “my hands on the title” early in the season, saying: “I never thought after the first seven grands prix [that] I had my hands on the title.”

Crash.net also reported that, since his last win at the Italian Grand Prix at the end of May, Bezzecchi had failed to score on five of the last seven Sundays—an inconsistent run that has made the championship fight harder to manage. After Sunday’s retirement, with Marquez winning and Jorge Martin finishing fifth, Bezzecchi was left 33 points behind the duo, despite being level on 274 points with Marquez in the standings after the San Marino result because of the countback on race wins.

Marquez, meanwhile, admitted that Bezzecchi’s crash had a direct impact on how he approached the rest of the race. The Ducati rider said he “approached the race differently” after seeing Bezzecchi go down, explaining that he “relaxed too much” when the Aprilia was out of the way. “It’s like walking a tightrope,” Marquez told DAZN. “When you’re riding at those speeds, at that pace, it’s very easy to make a mistake. That’s why that extra bit of concentration is so important. It’s true that when I saw Bezzecchi crash, I approached the race differently. “Perhaps I relaxed too much, and this gave Jorge the chance to attack me. But then I pulled myself together, calmed down, and bit by bit I started to get the feeling I had yesterday.”

Marquez said he then focused on rebuilding his rhythm and managing the gap rather than reacting emotionally. He acknowledged that once he lost his rhythm, the front end stopped turning and pushing as it should when he wasn’t riding hard enough. “I saw Bezzecchi crash, I let my guard down and on this circuit, with so much grip, as soon as you relax and don’t ride the bike hard, it doesn’t turn or push at the front. That’s what happened to me; I lost my rhythm,” he added. He also noted that while Jorge Martin’s attack caught him by surprise, he did not panic because he knew the race was long. “Jorge’s attack surprised me, but I didn’t panic. I knew there was a long race ahead. I decided to get that feeling back, even though it seemed like it was slipping away. We managed to get back on track and mentally, it’s much better to be in the lead and be the one being chased than the one doing the chasing.”

On track, Marquez inherited the lead from Bezzecchi’s crash, but had to work to keep it. He found himself behind Martin on Lap 7 before regaining the advantage with a move down the inside into Turn 6 on Lap 12. Alex Marquez then kept the pressure on, following his elder brother’s line at Turn 6 on Lap 14 and closing in as Martin began to fade due to arm pump. Marquez said he had the pace to fend off his brother, but also pointed to the way the race’s closing stages unfolded on a circuit where overtaking is difficult once you are half a second behind. “In the end, managing that gap, Alex surprised me when I saw him lapping in the low 31s and closing in on me. But on this track, when you’re half a second behind, you either have to be much faster or it’s impossible to overtake.”

Sunday’s result also shifted the championship picture. Marquez’s win at San Marino moved him to the top of the 2026 riders’ standings for the first time, with Martin slipping to P5. Marquez moved level on 274 points with Bezzecchi, but went ahead because he had won five Grands Prix compared to one. The Ducati rider’s run included victories in Hungary, Czechia, Germany, Aragon and San Marino over the past seven rounds, while he also won multiple Sprints, helping offset missing two rounds due to injury.