Marc Marquez won the MotoGP sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix on Saturday, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, finishing ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio. The 11-lap race at the Lusail International Circuit was shaped by a coming-together between Marquez and polesitter Marco Bezzecchi, who fell while leading. Francesco Bagnaia was also involved in a separate, heavy crash.
Why it matters
The sprint produced a significant swing at the front of the field. Bezzecchi had started from pole and held the lead in the early laps, but his fall handed the advantage to Marquez, who converted it into the win. Di Giannantonio's second place and the incident involving Bagnaia add further weight to a result that could influence the closing stages of the season.
Race direction reviewed the contact between Marquez and Bezzecchi and decided against penalising the Spaniard, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported. The decision drew a pointed reaction from Aprilia team principal Massimo Rivola, who was quoted saying "Bravi, bravi!" — applause the Italian sports daily characterised as polemical.
How the sprint unfolded
Bezzecchi led away from pole, with Marquez and Raul Fernandez behind him, followed by Di Giannantonio, Pedro Acosta, Johann Zarco, Bagnaia and Jorge Martin. The order at the front stayed tight, and Bezzecchi attacked Marquez at one stage before the Spaniard reclaimed the lead, holding it at the end of the main straight with a late, deep braking move.
The decisive moment came when the two made contact and Bezzecchi went down. Martin, who had climbed from 11th on the grid to second, tried to take advantage of the situation. On the final lap, Di Giannantonio attacked Martin for second place and made the pass stick.
Earlier in the race, Fermin Aldeguer touched Bagnaia at Turn 16, sending the Italian into a violent tumble in which he landed on his back. La Gazzetta dello Sport described it as a bad accident.
Grid set by Bezzecchi's pole
Bezzecchi took pole with a lap of 1:50.028, ahead of Marquez on 1:50.294 and Di Giannantonio on 1:50.327. Raul Fernandez qualified fourth, with Bagnaia fifth and Ai Ogura sixth. Zarco, Acosta, Aldeguer, Enea Bastianini, Martin and Brad Binder completed the top twelve. Martin's 11th-place grid slot meant he began the sprint well down the order before working his way forward.
In the morning practice session, Bezzecchi had also set the pace on his Aprilia with a 1:51.571, ahead of the Trackhouse Aprilias of Raul Fernandez and Ogura, second and third at 0.113 and 0.266 seconds respectively. Martin was fourth, 0.412 off the top, with Marquez fifth at 0.427.
Aldeguer and Acosta had been the fastest two riders in Q1, earning their places in the pole shootout.
Lusail's braking test
The Losail circuit, 5.38 km in length, is rated a medium-demand braking track by Brembo's engineers, who have worked with every MotoGP team for an 11th consecutive year. On a difficulty scale of one to six it scores three, with 11 braking zones per lap taking up 34 seconds in total: three rated high, four medium and four low.
The hardest stop is at Turn 1, approached from a 1.068 km straight. Bikes slow from 337 km/h to 99 km/h over 259 metres in a braking phase lasting 4.9 seconds, with riders applying 5.6 kg of pressure to the Brembo lever and experiencing 1.5 g of deceleration. System pressure reaches 12.1 bar and disc temperatures exceed 550 °C.
This is the 22nd edition of the Qatar Grand Prix and the 21st time MotoGP has raced at Lusail, with the 2020 event cancelled because of the pandemic. It is only the second time the race has been held in November, after 2023, when it was the penultimate round rather than the third-from-last as it is now. Yamaha has ten wins at the venue, with Ducati able to match that tally this year; Honda has taken the other three. Ducati has won the last four editions with four different riders: Bastianini in 2022, Di Giannantonio in 2023, Bagnaia in 2024 and Marquez in 2025.
The weekend continues on Sunday, with the MotoGP Grand Prix run over 22 laps at 17:00 local time, following the Moto3 and Moto2 races.
