“I was able to pull away from the rest early on, but Marco Bezzecchi didn’t let up. I had to push harder than I thought to get a one-second lead,” said sprint winner Jorge Martin, meaningfully praising the performance of his brand colleague, who was on track for a long time at Le Mans on Saturday two lay. But unlike Martin, Marco Bezzecchi wasn’t there at the MotoGP winner’s ceremony at start/finish because his race ended in turn nine four laps before the end. Instead of the first sprint podium of the year, the VR46 driver had another zero result. The simple reason? Marc Marquez’s pressure had become too much!
“I felt really good and had everything under control. I had great pace and was close to Jorge for a long time,” reported the visibly disappointed Bezzecchi in his media round on Saturday evening. Until the halfway point of the race, he was able to keep the gap to the leader Martin under one second; it was only during the seventh lap that his lead climbed over the one-second mark for the first time. While hopes of victory were therefore off the table, at that point there was still a lot pointing to a secure second place.
Marco Bezzecchi angry: Completely unnecessary mistake!
But the calculation was made without Marc Marquez, who fought his way up from 13th place to third place after a sensational starting phase. Once he was free, the Gresini driver used his strong racing pace, which he had already indicated in the second free practice session on Saturday morning. Initially unnoticed by Bezzecchi, he reduced his gap to the VR46 driver from 1.7 seconds to less than eight tenths within just a few laps. “When I realized that Marc was getting closer from behind, I pushed to increase the gap a little,” says last year’s winner of the French Grand Prix.
The decisive scene occurred during the tenth round. “I made a mistake in turn nine and was no longer able to prevent the crash. I didn’t brake too late, but I turned the bike in a little earlier than on the previous lap. I then lost the front,” describes Bezzecchi and is annoyed: “That wasn’t necessary, I didn’t have to do that. It’s a real shame not to be on the podium today.”
Marco Bezzecchi is back: also competitive at Le Mans
At the same time, it would have been Bezzecchi’s first sprint points in 2024; he was not yet able to score points in the first four short races of the current MotoGP season. This negative run by last year’s sprint artist – only Martin, Francesco Bagnaia and Brad Binder scored more points – continues. The sprint in Le Mans provided at least one positive insight: “I can’t be satisfied, but at least we showed ourselves to be competitive here too.”
After his strong previous season, which Bezzecchi finished in third place in the World Championship, he initially had major problems adapting to the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 in 2024. It was only at the last race weekend in Jerez that the old ‘Bezz’ was seen again. Not a flash in the pan, as demonstrated at Le Mans. This should happen again on Sunday VR46 pilots can be expected: “The pace will certainly be different tomorrow and we still have to wait and see what the weather is like. But I think we can do well.”