Wasted opportunity
The 2026 MotoGP World Championship begins with a twist, and what a twist. The crash, after just two laps of the Sprint race, of the dominator of the last tests and the start of the weekend: Marco Bezzecchi. A rude awakening for the Aprilia rider who, after dominating free practice and pre-qualifying and clinching pole position in the morning, threw it all away by going down during the second lap of the race, in the final part of the track.
BEZZECCHI GOES DOWN 💥
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? 🤯#ThaiGP 🇹🇭 pic.twitter.com/BC20Xp2kBP
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) February 28, 2026
At the time of the mistake – a front-end tuck that left no escape for #72 – Bezzecchi was leading the Sprint, followed closely by Marc Marquez and Pedro Acosta. This is a great wasted opportunity at a time when it seems clear that Aprilia, with its RS-GP26, is at least on par with, if not superior to, the Ducatis in their GP26 version.
One day, three crashes
Bezzecchi, however, was very ‘error-prone’ throughout Saturday, crashing in both FP2 and qualifying. The one in the Sprint was therefore the third slide in a single day. Definitely too many. This trend will necessarily have to be reversed in tomorrow’s race to avoid completely wasting a weekend that many predicted the Italian should have finished with the maximum haul of 37 points. Now the maximum achievable haul has dropped to 25.
Read more Bezzecchi takes it with irony: “That thin line between being a phenomenon and a d***head…”
