Marco Bezzecchi bounced back from a lacklustre performance in Saturday’s sprint to lead a 1-2 for the factory Aprilia MotoGP team at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Bezzecchi grabbed the lead at the start and never looked under threat at Goiania, claiming his fourth successive grand prix victory and the eighth of his career.
Bezzecchi’s team-mate Jorge Martin continued his impressive recovery from injury to finish second, securing his best finish since 2024, while Fabio di Giannantonio held off Marc Marquez to complete the podium positions.
Just five minutes before the formation lap, the race was shortened by eight laps to 23 due to “track degradation”, leaving riders unable to change tyres or reduce fuel loads for the revised distance.
When the action got underway, Bezzecchi got the holeshot from second on the grid, the Aprilia rider blasting past polesitter di Giannantonio long before braking for Turn 1.
Reigning world champion Marquez initially had to fend off the other Aprilia of Martin, but quickly pulled away from his countryman and moved into second when di Giannantonio ran wide at Turn 1 at the start of lap two.
At this stage, Bezzecchi was circulating only half a second in front, but he quickly upped his pace to build a buffer up front, setting a series of fastest laps to build a lead of 1.8s.
By lap 5, Martin was also looking rapid on the other factory Aprilia and, after repassing the KTM of Pedro Acosta, closed the gap to Marquez and di Giannantonio.
On lap 6, di Giannantonio sent his VR46 Ducati up the inside of Marquez into Turn 4 but both ran slightly wide, allowing Martin to come through and pass both of them in one go.
Soon after, the 2024 champion began chipping into Bezzecchi’s lead, while di Giannantonio and Marquez were left to squabble among themselves.
Martin managed to take half a second off Bezzecchi’s advantage over the following few tours, but the Italian responded on lap 12 to bring the gap back up again.
Ultimately, Bezzecchi had too much speed in hand and crossed the line 3.2s in front to continue his winning streak in MotoGP and take the lead in the championship.
Martin secured his best finish since his title-winning campaign in 2024, just a day after he returned to the podium in Saturday’s sprint.
The fight for the final podium spot raged on until the final lap, as di Giannantonio and Marquez repeated their battle from the sprint.
Marquez appeared to have third place in the bag after he passed di Giannantonio at Turn 7 with five laps to go. But the factory Ducati rider got it wrong at Turn 12 on the following lap, allowing the Italian to slip past him into third place.
Further back, Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura overtook Alex Marquez on the last lap to equal a career-best fifth, while KTM’s Pedro Acosta slipped to seventh at the finish after struggling late in the race on Michelin’s soft rear.
Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer secured an eighth place finish on his comeback, while Johann Zarco (LCR) and Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse) completed the podium positions.
Home favourite Diogo Moreira (LCR) recovered from a slow start that left him 18th on the opening lap to finish inside the points in 13th place.
Four riders failed to finish, with Joan Mir, Francesco Bagnaia, Brad Binder and Jack Miller all retiring due to crashes. Both Mir and Bagnaia were running inside the top 10 when they went down around midway through the race.
MotoGP Brazilian GP: Race results:
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– The Autosport.com Team
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