BEZZECCHI SAYS MISANO SPRINT PACE DROPPED EARLY ON FULL TANK

Marco Bezzecchi admitted that the key reason he couldn’t match Marc Marquez’s pace in Saturday’s 13-lap MotoGP sprint at Misano was a recurring problem with getting his Aprilia up to speed when the bike is still carrying a full fuel load.

Starting from pole, Bezzecchi lost the lead immediately at Turn 1 as Marquez slipped through. From there, the reigning champion set the rhythm and Bezzecchi struggled to respond. After only five laps, he was already about a second behind, and while the gap narrowed later in the sprint, he never managed to get back into the lead. Marquez went on to take his sixth sprint win of the season.

Speaking after the race, Bezzecchi said the day had been positive overall, pointing first to the quality of his qualifying. “First of all, it was a good day; it was a good qualifying,” he said. But he then explained that the sprint pace didn’t arrive as quickly as he expected, particularly early on.

“It’s true that it took a little bit longer than I expected to reach a good pace in the sprint,” Bezzecchi said. He described suffering with stability—especially at the rear—while the bike was pushing the front. “Honestly, I was suffering a little bit with the stability and the rear, which was pushing a little bit on the front.”

He added that the issue isn’t new and has shown up in recent weekends. “In the free practices, in the sessions, I felt a little bit better, and this is a problem we already had in the last two GPs: when I start for the race with the full fuel tank, I struggle a little bit more in the first three, four laps.”

Bezzecchi’s pattern, he said, is that once he finds confidence, the pace improves. “So, at the end, when I got confidence, I started to go faster and faster.”

Saturday’s sprint also marked a second consecutive time that Marquez jumped him into Turn 1, following the same kind of move at Aragon. Bezzecchi acknowledged the similarity but suggested the circumstances were different. “In Aragon, probably he was more aggressive, and I was a little bit too soft,” he explained.

At Misano, however, he felt he had done what he could to defend the line. “But today, I can’t complain about myself because I did everything right. I braked strong, I closed the line a bit. He was just a little bit better than me.” He summed up his own performance as solid despite the early setback: “Overall, I can’t complain about my performance. Just congrats to him and hopefully tomorrow I can make his life a bit harder.”

Tyre choice was another detail Bezzecchi discussed. For the sprint, he opted for the soft rear tyre, while Marquez and Aprilia team-mate Jorge Martin used the medium. Looking ahead to Sunday’s grand prix, Bezzecchi said he wasn’t yet sure which option he would take, but he believes both could work because tyre wear at Misano is low.

“This track has a lot of traction and a lot of grip, so the wear of the tyre is not much,” he said. “So, it’s just feeling. We’ll see which tyre I will choose, but I’m confident with both.”

With the championship picture close—Bezzecchi is now 22 points behind the lead—his focus for the race will be on improving that early-race stability and pace on the full tank, the same area he identified as the difference-maker in the sprint.