UCCIO SALUCCI QUESTIONS MARCO BEZZECCHI’S COMMITMENT TO THE 2026 TITLE FIGHT

VR46 Racing’s chief Uccio Salucci has raised doubts about Marco Bezzecchi’s level of commitment to the 2026 MotoGP title fight, pointing to what he sees as a lack of full immersion as the Italian falls further behind the championship pace.

Salucci’s comments come as Bezzecchi continues to lose ground after a difficult stretch that has included a crash while leading last weekend’s San Marino Grand Prix. With 14 rounds completed, Bezzecchi is now 33 points adrift of the championship leaders, Jorge Martin and Marc Marquez, and faces the need for a strong Austrian Grand Prix to avoid slipping even more as the season moves toward its decisive final phases.

Although Bezzecchi left Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Racing team at the end of 2024, Salucci noted that the rider remains in constant contact with VR46 through his position as a VR46 Riders Academy member. In that sense, Rossi has largely kept Bezzecchi in his corner throughout the campaign, despite earlier skepticism about whether the Aprilia rider could beat Marc Marquez.

Salucci was also asked about the dominance of Spanish riders at Misano, where six Spaniards took the chequered flag before Fabio Di Giannantonio delivered the best Italian result in P7. Salucci framed the situation as part of sport’s natural cycles, saying, “Life is always made up of different phases, and so is sport, in my opinion. It’s true that there are more Spaniards now, but if Bezzecchi hadn’t crashed, he might have won, and up until two races ago, an Italian was in the lead.” He added that he expects the grid to be more balanced next year, suggesting the current trend is temporary: “I believe that next year we’ll be even in terms of the number of riders on the grid, since they’re almost all Italians and Spaniards. I think this is just a phase we’re going through right now, but the Italians will be back on top very soon. Or at least I hope so.”

However, Salucci’s message was not only about national trends. He accused Italian riders of easing off, particularly at Misano, telling GPOne, “More than anything, our guys have been slacking off – some more than others. Especially at Misano. Let’s hope they wake up here in Austria.”

When the conversation turned specifically to Bezzecchi’s Misano crash and whether he had spoken with him about what happened at his home race, Salucci said he had not intervened directly. “I didn’t say anything to him, because he made an unnecessary mistake that, in my opinion, served no purpose,” he said. But he linked the error to a broader issue of focus and preparation at this level, stressing that understanding and improvement require sustained immersion: “But to understand why things happen, you have to be immersed in it 12 hours a day at this level, and lately he hasn’t been doing that much. I hope he gets back on track.”

With Bezzecchi facing a steep points gap, Salucci’s stance suggests VR46 believes the path back to contention starts with Bezzecchi himself—regaining the intensity and day-to-day involvement needed to close the gap as the championship enters its most critical stretch.