Marc Marquez and Dovizioso Take Di Giannantonio to Task

Former Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso has spoken out again about the collision between Marc Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi in the Qatar GP Sprint race—and more specifically, about the controversy that followed. After the race, Fabio Di Giannantonio had come to the defense of his friend and teammate, saying these words to number 93: “Anyway, bro, you’ve got to watch where you’re going when you come back in… He was right in there…”

Dovizioso didn’t take kindly to those words at all, and he made his position clear on his YouTube podcast: “Di Giannantonio acted like a typical Roman… In my opinion, you can’t really afford to say something like that to Marc Marquez right now. Of course, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion—no problem there—but he was being very cocky.”

The incident occurred on the fourth lap of the Sprint race on Saturday, November 7, when the two riders made contact at Turn 1 and Bezzecchi crashed out, forcing him to retire. Race Control opened an investigation but decided not to take any action against Marquez, with Massimo Rivola in the Aprilia pit welcoming the decision with a defiant round of applause. The Ducati rider went on to win the race ahead of Di Giannantonio, who finished second, 862 thousandths behind, and Jorge Martin, who came in third, extending his lead over the Aprilia rider in the world championship standings to 49 points.

Other key figures in the paddock also weighed in on the incident. Carlo Pernat, speaking to GPOne, explained that he believed it was a racing incident, but that under the new regulations, a Long Lap Penalty for the following day would have been appropriate: “Not out of malice, because he absolutely did not do it on purpose. It’s the instinct of a predator, of someone who refuses to lose.”

Marco Melandri took the opposite view, defending the Catalan rider on the “Chiacchiere da box” podcast: “Only someone who’s never been on a track can blame Marquez. He was on the same line as the lap before; Bezzecchi tried to pass, and he did it well […]. It was a racing incident—99% of the time, the rider on the outside goes down.” The former rider also brought up the 2015 incident in Argentina between Marquez and Valentino Rossi, wondering whether the decision on who is right is made “based on personal preferences or based on what actually happens on the track.”