Marco Bezzecchi dominated the Thailand Grand Prix from start to finish to claim an emphatic MotoGP victory for Aprilia, while Ducati failed to log a podium for the first time in five years.
Having crashed out of the lead in Saturday’s sprint, Bezzecchi didn’t put a foot wrong in the main race as he led every single lap en route to a 5.5s victory.
This was the Italian’s seventh career victory in MotoGP, and third in a row; he had also triumphed in the final two races of the 2025 season.
When the opening round of the 2026 season got under way, Bezzecchi made a perfect launch from pole position on his factory Aprilia, while Trackhouse rider Fernandez swept past Marc Marquez at Turn 7 to put two RS-GPs at the front.
Bezzecchi and Fernandez immediately began to clear in the opening phase of the race, benefitting from an intense battle for third between Marc Marquez, Jorge Martin and Pedro Acosta.
Reigning champion Marquez initially appeared to struggle for rhythm and lost places to both Martin and Acosta in quick succession on lap 4. But as Martin and sprint winner Acosta fought for position, Marquez forced his way back into contention and even repassed both on lap 10 with a double move into Turn 4.
However, Acosta had the strongest pace of the trio, and soon reclaimed third with a decisive move over Marquez at Turn 8.
Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing
Photo by: Lillian Suwanrumpha / AFP via Getty Images
But by this point, the leading two riders had checked out at the front, with Bezzecchi leading the race by two seconds and Fernandez having a buffer of three seconds over Acosta.
While Saturday’s half-distance race went down the wire, the grand prix was decided relatively early, with neither Fernandez nor Acosta putting together a late challenge on Bezzecchi.
Fernandez appeared on course to finish second but began to lose pace with seven laps to run, opening the door for Acosta to claim the runner-up spot.
The Trackhouse rider could have dropped out of the podium fight entirely but Marquez suffered a spectacular rear tyre puncture while running him in fourth, forcing the Ducati rider into retirement.
Marquez was following Fernandez and Acosta into the high-speed Turn 6 when the rear tyre on his GP26 suddenly delaminated and came off the rim, ending his race on the spot.
With the reigning world champion out, Fernandez hung on to the final spot on the podium, despite clearly struggling with a physical issue that had also troubled him during Sunday morning’s warm-up.
Martin picked up a solid haul of points in fourth, while Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura produced an incredible recovery after dropping outside the top 10 to put all Aprilias inside the top five.
The best-placed Ducati was Fabio di Giannantonio in sixth, the VR46 rider beating KTM’s Brad Binder and team-mate Franco Morbidelli. The result ended Ducati’s streak of podiums stretching back to the 2021 British GP.
Last year’s runner-up Alex Marquez was also running in the same group but crashed out of the race at Turn 4 with five laps to go.
Marquez’s exit promoted Francesco Bagnaia to ninth, the factory Ducati struggling to make any inroads after climbing inside the top 10 early on in the race.
Luca Marini finished 10th for the factory Honda team, while his team-mate Joan Mir was running a strong fifth when he too had to retire due to tyre woes.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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