Marco Bezzecchi (1st) was drawn into the potential major disaster

Aprilia works rider Marco Bezzecchi got off to a good start in the Australian Grand Prix with fourth place in FP1. He was just under three tenths of a second behind Marc Marquez, who, of all people, is ahead of him in the World Championship standings. Hours later, with track temperatures unusually high at well over 40 degrees, the Italian put in an exceptional performance, which was rewarded with the fastest time after 60 minutes.

On his way to achieving this, the number 72 rider narrowly avoided a potential major crash. The riders in the premier class had only just got into their stride when Bezzecchi, on the factory Aprilia, ran into Gresini rider Alex Marquez whilst negotiating the fast Turn 3. Evidently also due to the turbulence, Bezzecchi was literally sucked in by the rear of the Ducati at well over 200 km/h. Although Bezzecchi managed to avoid a head-on collision, the glancing blow was enough.

The side fairing of Bezzecchi’s Aprilia flew off, Bezzecchi wobbled past the braking point and crashed into the gravel trap at Turn 4. The crash itself was minor, but the hair-raising incident immediately sparked discussion and excitement in both pits. However, tempers soon calmed down, as neither Bezzecchi nor Marquez had made a serious mistake. Ultimately, the collision highlighted the ‘fine line’ involved in handling the aerodynamic developments on the MotoGP prototypes.

Surprisingly, Marco Bezzecchi remained completely unfazed by it all. ‘Bez’ racked up lap after lap, holding the fastest time for a long time on the potential race tyres. When he switched to the soft tyres, he initially dropped back to P7. But in the final session, the World Championship bronze medallist left the competition in his wake. His time of 1:26.775 minutes remained unchallenged until the chequered flag. However, the Aprilia rider fell 0.3 seconds short of the lap record. With the weather forecast predicting ‘rain’, the chances are good that Fabio Quartararo’s benchmark time of 1:26.465 minutes will stand for the duration of the event – and that the Frenchman will go down in MotoGP history as the fastest rider of all time at Phillip Island.

Marco Bezzecchi auf Phillip Island

Foto: Gold and Goose

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Marco Bezzecchi was quite happy with that. “Our start to the GP went as hoped; I already had a good foundation in free practice, which allowed us to work through the programme without any problems. It was one of those rare days at Phillip Island that you should really enjoy, weather-wise – and I certainly did,” grinned Bezzecchi.

The day’s fastest rider commented on the collision with Ducati rider Alex Marquez: “The wind also played a big part in that situation. It was very strong at that moment. Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid the contact and hit Alex’s leg. In the end, though, it wasn’t too bad,” said “Bez”, playing down the incident.

The Aprilia ace also sidestepped the question about the weather change that is widely expected: “I don’t want to waste any energy worrying about it right now. It’s better to spend the time working with the team on the areas that will make us faster in these conditions. If I look out of the window tomorrow and things are different – then I’ll try to adapt to it as quickly as possible.”