Marc Marquez takes Misano MotoGP sprint win after tense race
Marc Marquez beat Marco Bezzecchi at the San Marino MotoGP sprint
Ducati’s Marc Marquez utilised an alternate tyre strategy to beat Marco Bezzecchi to victory in a tense MotoGP San Marino Grand Prix sprint.
Having been beaten to pole earlier on Saturday morning, reigning world champion Marc Marquez snatched the lead from the second on the grid on the opening lap.
In a repeat of his sprint victory last time out at Aragon, Marquez would not be headed once in the lead of the 13-lap race, though he did have to resist late pressure from Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi.
Now on 21 career sprint victories, Marquez is just 14 points from championship leader Jorge Martin, who was third in the sprint.
Marquez’s march to his sixth sprint win of the campaign started ahead of Saturday’s race, when he made a switch to the medium rear as Bezzecchi stayed with the soft.
The Ducati rider grabbed the holeshot on the run to Turn 1, overtaking Bezzecchi on the inside line and holding it through the next sequence of corners.
The pair ran close in the early laps, though the lead gap would grow to around half a second at the start of the fourth tour.
Marquez continued to swell his advantage to a second over the next two laps, though he would face a late rally from Bezzecchi.
At the start of the ninth lap, Bezzecchi was just 0.7s behind the Ducati rider, chipping away at that gap by another tenth next time around.
But Marquez would respond to this threat and put 1.068s between himself and Bezzecchi through to the chequered flag.
Second for Bezzecchi marks his best sprint result of the season, which puts him just 22 points behind team-mate Martin in the standings now.
Martin also went with the medium rear for the sprint and moved into third on lap seven after finally finding a way through on VR46 Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio.
But that was as far as Martin could go, with the 2024 world champion 2.470s from Bezzecchi at the chequered flag.
Di Giannantonio was fourth ahead of Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez, while Pedro Acosta could do no more than sixth for KTM.
Raul Fernandez was seventh on the Trackhouse Aprilia, as third-place starter Fermin Aldeguer got beaten up in the early stages and dropped to eighth on the sister Gresini Ducati.
Luca Marini scored the final sprint point in ninth for Honda ahead of LCR’s Johann Zarco.
Pecco Bagnaia’s difficult weekend continued in 13th, while Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo finished last after crashing while trying to overtake LCR’s Diogo Moreira at Turn 14 on lap three.
