Marc Marquez wins Misano MotoGP to take championship lead, Bezzecchi crashes
Marc Marquez won a thrilling San Marino Grand Prix after Marco Bezzecchi crashed
Marc Marquez has taken the MotoGP championship lead after winning a thrilling San Marino Grand Prix, as Marco Bezzecchi crashes on the opening lap.
With Marc Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi leading all sessions coming into Sunday’s 27-lap race at Misano, the pair were expected to engage in another duel for supremacy.
But that would never materialise, after Aprilia’s Bezzecchi crashed in front of his own grandstand while leading on the opening lap.
Marquez inherited the lead, but would briefly lose it to the sister factory Aprilia of Jorge Martin.
Taking the position back from Martin on lap 12, Marquez then had to fend off intense late pressure from younger brother Alex Marquez on the Gresini Ducati to score his fifth grand prix win of the 2026 season.
With Martin shuffled back to fifth come the chequered flag, Marquez now leads the championship, albeit level on points with the Aprilia rider.
Becoming the first Ducati rider to lead the standings in 2026, Marquez does so having overturned a 102-point deficit after the Italian Grand Prix at the end of May.
Alex Marquez was just 0.657s behind his older brother in second, while Pedro Acosta clawed his way through to third on the KTM for back-to-back podiums.
Only 14 riders from 21 starters finished the race.
Bezzecchi grabbed the holeshot from pole ahead of Marquez, riding defensively in the opening corners to keep the Ducati rider behind him.
Martin worked his way to third in the first turns, with Bezzecchi already threatening to pull away as he headed into the final sector of the track.
But his race ended with a high-speed crash at Turn 13, releasing Marquez into the lead ahead of Martin.
Martin overtook Marquez at Turn 4 on the seventh tour, and managed over the next few laps to build a lead of over eight tenths.
Behind, Acosta and Alex Marquez traded places, with the latter getting the upper hand to then close down the leading duo.
By the start of lap 11, though, Marquez’s pace had increased again, and he began to pressure Martin, before staging a successful raid on his lead at Turn 6 on lap 12.
Alex Marquez came through on Martin two laps later to start chasing his older brother, who was over a second clear at the front.
That lead would come down in the closing stages to set up a nail-biting finale, though seven-time champion Marc Marquez just held firm.
Acosta was 2.3s back from the lead in third, while Fermin Aldeguer on the sister Gresini Ducati pushed Martin down to fifth.
Martin was 14.021s away from Marc Marquez at the chequered flag.
Raul Fernandez was a distant sixth on the Trackhouse Aprilia, while VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio struggled to seventh ahead of Tech3 KTM’s Enea Bastianini, Honda’s Luca Marini and Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo.
Brad Binder was 11th on the sister factory KTM, with Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pramac), Franco Morbidelli (VR46) and Pol Espargaro (Tech3) the final classified runners.
Johann Zarco (LCR) was a late crasher, while Pramac’s Jack Miller, Ducati’s Pecco Bagnaia and LCR’s Diogo Moreira also fell. Alex Rins (Yamaha) and Joan Mir (Honda) retired in the pits.
