Bezzecchi wins Qatar MotoGP, Márquez second, title decision moves to Portimão

Bezzecchi wins from pole at Lusail

Marco Bezzecchi won the Qatar Grand Prix on 8 November, starting from pole and leading the 22-lap race for most of its distance. It was his sixth win of the season, and it came a day after he crashed out of the Sprint. He pulled clear of Raúl Fernández early on, then kept a comfortable gap until the Aprilia rider had to reduce power to avoid running out of fuel. Fernández had held second for a long spell before that.

After the flag, Bezzecchi thanked his team and his manufacturer for the result, saying:

“It's a beautiful feeling. I have to thank Aprilia, it was an exceptional weekend for us.”

Saturday contact and Márquez's calculated race

On Saturday, Bezzecchi and Márquez touched at the first corner while fighting for the lead. Bezzecchi went into the gravel, while Márquez continued and won the Sprint. The stewards judged the contact a racing incident and took no action, a verdict that Aprilia chief executive Massimo Rivola greeted with sarcastic applause. Bezzecchi had said that anger would change nothing, and on Sunday he kept to that by concentrating on his own riding.

Márquez needed to win and needed Martín to score nothing, and he managed only the first half of that. He conserved tyres early, pushed harder in the second half of the race, and set the best race lap ever recorded at Lusail. Pedro Acosta passed him during the race, and he lost ground to the two leading Aprilias before recovering. Three laps from the end, he passed Fernández to take second.

Title race heads to Portimão

Márquez now leads Martín by 60 points and Bezzecchi by 74. At Portimão, Márquez can clinch the title at the end of the Sprint if he scores two more points than Martín. The Sprint points run 12 for the winner, nine for second, seven for third, six for fourth, five for fifth and four for sixth.

Jorge Martín60

Marco Bezzecchi74

Jorge Martín

60 points

Marco Bezzecchi

74 points

Data from the article text

Bezzecchi's remaining route is very narrow. Márquez would have to score nothing at the next two rounds, and Martín could score no more than 14 points across both weekends. Given Martín's performance in Qatar, that looks unlikely.

Race behind the leaders

Sixteen riders started the race. Yamaha chose not to take part, Francesco Bagnaia was out after a heavy crash on Saturday, and Luca Marini did not race. Ai Ogura finished fourth, Enea Bastianini fifth, Pedro Acosta sixth and Fabio Di Giannantonio eighth. Four RS-GP bikes finished in the top seven.

Martín rode with a fractured right wrist, a week and a half after the injury was reported, and he had earned a Sprint podium the day before. He finished seventh, with Márquez now relying on the next round to settle the title. After the race, his team helped him off the bike and he iced the wrist in the garage.