MARC MARQUEZ WINS MISANO SPRINT AFTER ANOTHER TURN 1 PASS ON BEZZECCHI

Marc Marquez claimed his sixth sprint win of the 2026 MotoGP season at the San Marino Grand Prix, passing polesitter Marco Bezzecchi at the start of the 13-lap contest. Bezzecchi had taken pole by smashing the Misano circuit record in Saturday qualifying, setting a new lap mark for his second straight pole and fourth of the year. After Marquez got through again into Turn 1, Bezzecchi insisted he “did everything right” at the start, but Marquez held off a late challenge to win by 1.068s, with Jorge Martin third.

The sprint race played out with Marquez and Bezzecchi pulling away from the rest, while Martin watched from P3. Fabio Di Giannantonio, riding for VR46, was also in the mix as a spectator rather than a protagonist, finishing P4 as Marquez beat the Aprilia rider to the line. Di Giannantonio said he was “surprised” by what he saw from Marquez, adding that the seven-time champion was not only delivering on talent but also finding improvements on the bike. “Marc surprised me. Besides being Marquez, he’s also managing to improve the bike more than us,” Di Giannantonio said, via quotes by GPOne. He also pointed to how often Marquez is able to stay close to the Aprilias, or even beat them, and argued that others need to raise their level to match. “He’s more often able to stay close to the Aprilias, or even beat them. So, we also have to improve to be able to stay closer.”

Di Giannantonio also explained his own approach to the sprint, saying the plan was to remain near the front rather than chase from further back. “Yes, absolutely [staying out of the pack was vital]. The goal was to stay right behind Marc and Marco. It was practically the only chance we had to try and fight for the podium. I did well to make room for myself and stay there.”

Bezzecchi tried to respond in the middle stages, using the soft rear tyre advantage compared to Marquez’s medium. Marquez’s counter came late: he pulled clear of Bezzecchi in the closing laps and even set the fastest lap of the sprint on Lap 11/13 with a 1:30.734, shattering Bezzecchi’s hopes of a late comeback.

Tyre choice was central to the story. Di Giannantonio noted that Marquez’s ability to make the Ducati GP26 work for his riding style better than others could was part of the equation, but Marquez himself insisted the medium rear was the deciding factor. Marquez said, via quotes by AS: “Today, there are two medium tyres on the podium and one soft. I’m convinced that today the medium was the tyre that gave the best performance, and tomorrow Bezzecchi will be on the medium.” He added that he had studied the lap-time data repeatedly and believed Bezzecchi would extract more from the medium after showing better pace on it earlier. “I look at the lap times and the data, and I look at it 20 times, and yesterday he had better pace on the medium than on the soft. I think he’ll get a bit more out of it.”

Marquez also framed the decision as a calculated risk for the championship. “But we’re taking a gamble, and we also have to be realistic given today’s advantage. If we lose five points tomorrow and we’ve recovered three today, it’s not so bad.”

Ahead of Sunday, Marquez doubled down on his view that Bezzecchi remains the rider to beat once both are on the medium rear. “I believe Marco with the medium rear will be the guy to beat,” he said. “He has this extra boost, he’ll push. As we saw today [in the Sprint] he never gives up.” Asked what he would try to do to counter that, Marquez added that he would “try to make Marco Bezzecchi’s life a bit more difficult.” He also assessed the points picture: “But today we took twelve points. If tomorrow we take 20 and he takes 25 we only lose 3 points [this weekend]. So not bad.”

With the sprint’s tyre split underlining the gamble, only Aprilia’s Jorge Martin, Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez, LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco, and the Pramac duo of Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jack Miller chose the medium rear like Marquez, while Di Giannantonio and Bezzecchi ran the soft. With Marquez’s victory, he gained three points over Bezzecchi and five over championship leader Martin, moving to a position where he trails Martin by 14 points going into Sunday’s San Marino Grand Prix, while Bezzecchi sits 22 points adrift in third.

Ahead of the race, Bezzecchi topped morning warm-up in Misano, finishing the ten-minute session 0.376s clear of Marquez. Bezzecchi switched from a soft rear in the sprint to a medium rear for warm-up, the same rear compound used by Marquez and Martin, who was only 20th in the session. Crash.net also noted that heading into Sunday, either Bezzecchi or Marquez had led every session this weekend except Q1.