MISANO ADRIATICO: Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi won Saturday’s sprint at the San Marino Grand Prix after championship leader Marc Marquez crashed out of the lead on Ducati’s home turf as the Spaniard failed to finish on the podium for the first time in sprints this season.

An aggressive Marquez had elbowed his way through from fourth on the grid before overtaking polesitter Bezzecchi halfway through the sprint to take the lead.

But six-time champion Marquez, who had won 14 sprints this season, made a rare mistake in the final sector to crash out of the lead, gifting Bezzecchi his first sprint victory since the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix.

“It was a fantastic Saturday, very happy to grab the sprint win. I don’t really remember my last one,” said Bezzecchi, who celebrated the win with his mentor and MotoGP great Valentino Rossi.

“The race was not perfect because we had some issues during the race. But even having these problems, I was able to have a good pace and I knew that Marc was on the limit. So very happy, I gave my all.”

However, regardless of what happens in Sunday’s race Marc will have a chance to win the title at the Japan MotoGP in a fortnight and move level on seven championship triumphs with his great rival Rossi.

His crash most benefitted Alex Marquez of Gresini Racing who finished second and cut his sibling’s lead at the top of the standings to 174 points.

He also moved 77 ahead of Marc Marquez’s struggling team-mate Francesco Bagnaia, who finished over 16 seconds off the pace in 13th and is looking over his shoulder in third place in the championship as Bezzecchi now trails him by 28 points.

Marc’s crash brought cheers from a chunk of the crowd even though he rides for Ducati as many Italian motorcycling fans have refused to forgive him for, as they see it, from actively working to stop Rossi from winning what would have been his eighth MotoGP title in 2015.

Rossi has openly called Marquez a “dirty” rider for crashing into him in that year’s penultimate Malaysian MotoGP, after which Rossi was punished by having to start the final race of that year at the back of the grid, virtually guaranteeing Jorge Lorenzo the title.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2025