Marco Bezzecchi Remains Evasive About What Happened at the Start

Three races, three crashes, and just as many missed opportunities. For Marco Bezzecchi, the end of the season is turning into a run of events that’s hard to swallow, with incidents at Assen, Misano, and Mandalika derailing his ambitions. After crashing on the second lap in the Netherlands, on the first lap at Misano, and in the first corner of the Sprint race in Indonesia, suspicions of some sort of curse are beginning to surface. The rider from Romagna, however, prefers not to assign blame and to chalk it all up to racing incidents.

At Mandalika, the sequence unfolded like a domino effect triggered at the first corner. Four riders were side-by-side as they braked: Fabio Di Giannantonio on the inside, followed by Marc Marquez, Bezzecchi, and Raul Fernandez. No one was willing to give way, and—compounded by a slight contact between the two Ducatis—the group went wide. Bezzecchi was forced to lift his Aprilia, ultimately colliding with Fernandez’s bike. The result was inevitable: both riders went down.

Speaking to reporters in Indonesia, the Aprilia rider kept a calm tone: “Unfortunately, the start is a moment when we’re all close together, and it’s normal to often have to adapt a bit to the situation,” he explained, then recounting what happened: “When I saw that Marc and Fabio were easing off the brakes at the same time, I had to lift the bike up a bit twice. Unfortunately, the second time I felt a contact and I went down.” His position is clear and leaves no room for interpretation: “There’s nothing to complain about; it’s a racing incident, and these things happen.”

The exchange with Raul Fernandez—who attributed part of the blame for the incident to Bezzecchi—could have turned into a controversy. The Spanish rider claimed that Bezzecchi was more focused on closing the outside line than on defending against the Ducatis on the inside. Bezzecchi, however, has no intention of rising to the provocation, while reiterating his own account of the events: “Honestly, I don’t have much to clarify—he’s the one who touched me—but it’s clear that it was a racing incident. I’m angry and disappointed, but it’s not like I’m mad at him.”