Marc Marquez’s classy MotoGP crash response should serve as an example for some

Passionate fan bases are the lifeblood of sport. It’s a cliche, but without the fans - for the most part - most of sport wouldn’t exist, and certainly not to the levels that some global competitions enjoy. For MotoGP riders, the reason so many get to live the high life is fan desire to see them race and ensure there is a need for them.

But passion can, on some occasions, breed hostility. And in the age of the vacuum chamber of loudness and hatred that is social media, everyone has at the tip of their fingers the ability to share any opinion they may have completely unfiltered.

For the most part, fans behave in a fairly normal, well-behaved manner. I like to think of MotoGP fans as among the most knowledgeable fan bases in world sport.

But Sunday’s Indonesian Grand Prix was a prime example of when passion crosses over into venom. Marco Bezzecchi’s ill-judged overtaking attempt on Marc Marquez on the opening lap of the Mandalika race has been the major talking point of the weekend, somewhat overshadowing the maiden win for rookie Fermin Aldeguer.

Aprilia’s Bezzecchi made a poor getaway from pole position, as he did on Saturday in the sprint before winning it, and was understandably keen to get back up through the field as quick as possible.

Bezzecchi had been rapid through Turn 7 all weekend and was visibly more confident charging into the corner than Marquez was as he made a look on the inside for an overtake.

The resulting contact ended with both going down and Marquez fracturing his right collarbone, as well as potentially damaging some ligaments. He is en-route to Madrid at the time of publishing to evaluate his recovery options.

It’s a bitter blow for the Ducati rider just a week on from achieving the dream title comeback five years removed from a serious injury to his right arm. 

Bezzecchi was knocked about in the crash, too, but escaped any serious injury. There is likely a penalty in his future, though the FIM stewards have deferred his hearing until he is available again having been taken to a local hospital for checks following the collision.

Marquez, however, brushed it aside as a racing incident, pointing out that it could just as easily have been himself as the instigator - as his tangle with Alex Rins in the sprint on Saturday attests to.

Bezzecchi, for his part, apologised to Marquez immediately after the crash and then again, according to Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola, who in turn offered his own apologies to the Ducati team.

Ducati’s Davide Tardozzi felt Bezzecchi was in “too much of a rush” but acknowledges it was “a mistake” on the Aprilia rider’s part.

Case closed, pending the stewards’ decision, right? Well, no.

Straight away, social media lit up with fans throwing all sorts of accusations at Bezzecchi, suggesting that he caused the collision on purpose. Others have called for extreme penalties, while even threats have been sent Bezzecchi’s way. This is wholly unacceptable, and clearly was the trigger for Marquez’s classy social media response just a few hours later.

“Please, no hard feelings towards Marco; nobody does it on purpose,” he wrote on Instagram.

A scan of the discourse surrounding this reveals a lot of posts demanding a right to be annoyed by their rider getting injured. And that is fair enough. When something doesn’t go the way of your favourite athlete or team, emotions rise.

But the trigger for this seems to be how Bezzecchi responded to a tangle with Marquez at the 2023 Valencia Grand Prix. At the time, he said: “I think his riding style doesn’t need any explanation. And also what was very good, they didn’t show the replay. It was very, very dirty. I think from the view from the TV you can see very well, but it’s Marquez so they don’t make anything to him…They never make nothing to him, because it’s Marquez, and he’s the dirtiest rider.”

I was there at that particular debrief and it’s worth bearing in mind that Bezzecchi, then in his second MotoGP season, was sipping on a beer when speaking with the media. How much he’d had beforehand isn’t clear, but often teams will delay a riders media debrief to let them cool off if there has been a particular flash point. Controlling what a rider says even then is never easy, but Bezzecchi probably could have benefitted that day from a little better guidance.

Marquez, at the time, brushed it off and didn’t want to give any oxygen to Bezzecchi’s rant. What’s ironic is that this year the relationship between the pair has really blossomed, to the point where this incident was referenced recently and Bezzecchi made a very pertinent response about his own maturity.

“In the end, it’s normal to have difficult moments when you’re fighting, and in the past I was maybe even a little more immature than I am now,” he said at the San Marino Grand Prix, after the pair battled hard for the victory.

“It was difficult then, whereas now [our relationship] it’s very good. You can’t not look at Marc’s speed, and he’s obviously a rival. So, we’re not best friends. But in the end it’s like that with all MotoGP riders. We have a good relationship: we respect each other and we have good races on the track.”

There is probably an element of the bitter feud between Valentino Rossi - Bezzecchi’s mentor - and Marquez that bled through on that day in Valencia in 2023. And it almost certainly has a hand in the bitter response Bezzecchi has received in the wake of the Mandalika clash.

Without question, Bezzecchi’s overtaking attempt - which he hasn’t had a chance to properly explain yet - was a misjudgement borne out of impatience. But this isn’t a rider who has made many mistakes in what has been something of a breakout year for him in terms of becoming a consistent frontrunner.

He was given an official warning for locking up into Turn 1 in Argentina and running into the back of Fabio Quartararo. That aside, he’s kept his nose clean. Marquez got his first riding offence in Indonesia for his collision with Rins in the sprint, which was a long lap penalty.

Fan opinion will always be divided. But the Bezzecchi backlash has been largely unwarranted and has shown a far more bitter side of fandom that MotoGP doesn’t necessarily benefit from…