Bezzecchi crashes on lap one: Marc Marquez is the new championship leader

• Result: Marc Marquez ahead of Alex Marquez (+0.657 seconds) and Pedro Acosta (+2.326 seconds)
• Championship: Marquez and Jorge Martin both on 274 points, Marquez leads on the higher number of wins this season
• Only 14 of the 21 riders who started made it to the finish

Before the race, everything pointed to another duel between Marco Bezzecchi and Marc Marquez. The two had shared the fastest times all weekend, and on Saturday Bezzecchi had set the quickest lap in the circuit’s history at 1:29.982 to take pole. After 27 laps, however, the result was one almost nobody had expected. Marquez won for the fifth time this season and left Italy as the new championship leader.

How did Marc Marquez win in Misano?

Marquez inherited the lead after Bezzecchi crashed on the opening lap, briefly lost it to Jorge Martin and took it back on lap 12. From there he held on to the finish.

Bezzecchi had won the start. The Aprilia rider defended the first corner firmly and led for three quarters of the opening lap. He then crashed at Turn 13 and was out. Marquez took over in front of Martin, Fermin Aldeguer, Pedro Acosta, Alex Marquez and Luca Marini.

On lap 7, Martin braked up the inside at Turn 4 and built a lead of around eight tenths of a second. Marquez stayed within striking distance and picked up the pace again from lap 11. One lap later he went through on the inside at Turn 6 and was back in front. Two laps after that, Alex Marquez passed Martin at exactly the same spot.

In the closing stages, the gap between the brothers came down to around four tenths of a second. Both rode almost identical lap times to the flag, without Alex Marquez being able to mount an attack. Every rider used the medium compound front and rear.

What does Bezzecchi’s crash mean for the championship?

The retirement left Bezzecchi on 241 points, 33 behind Marquez. It was his fifth Grand Prix without a score this season.

The crash came in the fast final sector, right in front of the packed grandstands of his home region. Bezzecchi is from Rimini, less than ten kilometres from the circuit. Before the start, Aprilia sporting director Paolo Bonora had explicitly called on his riders to be patient, pointing out that a full race distance in these temperatures demanded restraint.

For Aprilia it was doubly painful. Martin led the race for a spell, then lost three positions within a few laps and finished fifth, 14.021 seconds down. That also cost the Spaniard the championship lead he had held since Assen.

How did the race unfold behind the Marquez brothers?

Pedro Acosta took his second podium in a row in third place. Fermin Aldeguer moved up to fourth and pushed Martin down to fifth.

Acosta had endured a difficult weekend and spoke openly after the race about how angry he had been following the warm-up and how he had put pressure on his team. He had told his people that he would deliver if they gave him what he needed. The pace had been good and the bike had worked properly, he said, but something was still missing in the fast sections.

Behind the top five, Raul Fernandez, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Enea Bastianini, Marini and Fabio Quartararo completed the top ten. The remaining points went to Brad Binder, Toprak Razgatlioglu, Franco Morbidelli and Pol Espargaro. Morbidelli had to serve a long lap penalty during the race, picked up on Friday for riding slowly on the racing line.

Who else retired in Misano?

Alongside Bezzecchi, Francesco Bagnaia, Jack Miller, Diogo Moreira and Johann Zarco crashed. Joan Mir and Alex Rins parked their bikes in the garage.

Bagnaia went down at the start of lap six. For the Italian it was another setback after 14th on the grid and 13th in the sprint. One detail did go his way: with his 142nd Grand Prix start for Ducati he is now the rider with the most Ducati starts in MotoGP history, moving ahead of Andrea Dovizioso on 141.

Miller and Moreira went down shortly after Bezzecchi, with Miller able to continue. Rins retired with a technical problem, Mir pulled in with a headache. The 2020 world champion had already said on Saturday that he was not feeling fully fit. Zarco crashed shortly before the end of the race. Because only 14 riders were still running at the finish, every finisher scored points.

MotoGP Misano 2026: How do the standings look after the race?

Marc Marquez and Jorge Martin are both on 274 points. The championship lead goes to Marquez because he has five Grand Prix wins to Martin’s one.

Behind them come Bezzecchi on 241 points, Di Giannantonio on 223, Acosta on 209 and Ai Ogura on 203. Ogura missed Misano for the second race in a row with a hand injury. Maverick Vinales was also absent, replaced for the third time by test rider Pol Espargaro at Tech3 KTM.

The shape of the season from Marquez’s point of view is remarkable. After the Italian GP at the end of May he was 102 points off the top of the table. The defending champion had struggled with injuries early in the year, missed a race weekend after breaking a bone in his foot at the French GP and also had surgery on his right shoulder, where a nerve problem had persisted since a crash at the Indonesian GP last October. Since then he has won in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Aragon and now Misano.

He summed up his Sunday like this: “Unreal. It feels unreal. But never give up. I will push until the end. This is not done, but this is not over.” He said he had become briefly overconfident after Bezzecchi’s mistake, which is when Martin attacked him. After that he found his confidence again and held the pace. The 37 points from the weekend meant a lot to him.

In the constructors’ standings, Ducati took over the lead and is now two points ahead of Aprilia.

Special liveries for Vespa and Simoncelli

Aprilia and Gresini ran different colours on Sunday than in the sprint. Both special designs had a specific reason behind them.

Aprilia sent Bezzecchi and Martin out in an almost entirely white livery called Perla Bianca. It was created for the 80th anniversary of the Vespa and also recalls Gilles Villeneuve, who wore a Vespa logo on a white race suit when he won the 1981 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix. Like Aprilia, Vespa belongs to the Piaggio Group.

Gresini ran Alex Marquez and Aldeguer in a retro design in the San Carlo colours of 2010 and 2011, when Marco Simoncelli rode for the team. On 23 October this year it will be 15 years since Simoncelli’s fatal accident. The Misano circuit has carried his name for years. After the race, Alex Marquez said it had been a real honour to wear those colours and dedicated the podium to Simoncelli.

Attendance record in Misano

According to the organisers, 184,051 spectators followed the weekend at the circuit. That is more than at any previous Grand Prix at the Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

On race day alone 96,485 visitors came to the track, with 54,059 on Saturday. A further 33,507 visitors were counted before the race weekend proper began.

What happens next in MotoGP?

The next round follows as soon as this coming weekend with the Grand Prix of Austria at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. After that the series begins its Asian tour.

Eight Grands Prix remain in the 2026 season. For Aprilia that means eight chances to make up the ground the home Grand Prix has cost them. For Marquez and Ducati, the task is to hold on to the lead they have just taken.

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