Aprilia MotoGP star Marco Bezzecchi says he never accepted the narrative that he could win the Australian Grand Prix after receiving a double long penalty on Thursday.
Bezzecchi was always going to face an uphill battle at Phillip Island, having been penalized by stewards at the start of the weekend for causing a collision with Ducati’s Marc Marquez in Indonesia.
But the Aprilia rider showed fast pace from the opening practice sessions and took pole position by three tenths, before dominating Saturday’s sprint race to cement his position as the fastest rider on the grid.
This led many people in the paddock, including some of his rivals, to suggest that he could overcome the double long penalty and claim a sensational victory on Sunday.
He had already made an incredible recovery at Mandalika, fighting off a slow start in the sprint that saw him drop to eighth place to take a final lap victory over Fermin Aldeguer.
The Italian showed great pace at the Australian GP to finish third behind VR46’s Raul Fernandez and Fabio di Giannanantonio, but said he entered the race believing even a podium was out of reach.
“It’s been nice,” he said. “Super hard because honestly I never thought about victory. Only the journalists thought about it, but I didn’t even expect a podium.
“As the race was going on, I did my best to be as far away (in front) by the time I did the first long lap, so as not to end up inside the pack. And my strategy fortunately worked well. To be completely honest, it was my team’s strategy, not mine.
“Then after the second long lap, luckily I only finished sixth, better than I expected.
“But after having pushed so hard at the beginning, I couldn’t stress the tires any more. If not, I was going to be dead in the last few laps.
“Super happy when I fought Pedro (Acosta). I thought fourth place was the best. It’s super difficult to overtake him. So I said, ‘Okay, that’s it. Let’s try to escape from him and secure this fourth place.'”
“But then I saw that he was also catching up with Alex (Márquez). So I said, ‘Okay, let’s keep pushing.’ And at least I tried.”
Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing
Photo by: Robert Cianflone ​​/ Getty Images
Bezzecchi took the lead at the start of the race from second on the grid and quickly built a lead of more than a second over Fernandez.
After serving his first penalty, he dropped to third position behind Fernández and Acosta, but the second long lap left him in sixth place.
He initially bided his time behind Quartararo, but then passed him, Acosta and finally Marquez with two laps remaining to claim third place.
Bezzecchi admitted he had to be careful going through the long loop of Turn 4 to ensure he didn’t go too wide and face another penalty.
“(On) the second long lap, I did my best on the first one, so I don’t know if it was slower or not,” he said.
“I wanted to be fast, of course, but I also didn’t want to risk hitting the green and doing the long lap again, so I was left with a (margin of) a couple of tenths instead of losing two more seconds.
“So I tried to manage it. First of all, I had to get the tire to breathe a little, so it wasn’t a decision to slow down, it was what I had to do.”
“But then when I realized I wasn’t wasting time managing (the tires), I said, ‘OK, let’s try to be patient and if possible in the end, let’s try to be closer.’ And then I tried.”
Bezzecchi was unimpressed when asked if he would have repeated his sprint victory if he had not had to serve a penalty on Sunday.
“It’s impossible to say because in the end I did the race with two long laps, of course,” he said.
“I don’t know, because Raúl was super good this weekend and I also felt good with the bike. The whole Aprilia factory is working in an incredible way. So let’s say it’s good.”
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