Aprilia rider Marco Bezzecchi reclaimed the lead of the 2026 MotoGP standings with a commanding victory in the United States Grand Prix.
The 27-year-old made a brilliant start from fourth on the grid and muscled past early leader Pedro Acosta on the opening lap to score his fifth consecutive grand prix win.
Jorge Martin rose from seventh on the grid to complete a 1-2 for Aprilia, adding a podium to his sprint win on Saturday, while Acosta finished a solid third for KTM.
At the start of the race, Acosta again got the holeshot from second on the grid, with Aprilia duo Bezzecchi and Martin slotting into second and third as polesitter Fabio di Giannantonio tumbled to fourth.
Bezzecchi then started piling pressure on KTM rival Acosta, taking a shallow line into Turn 11 heading into the back straight. However, there was drama as he touched Acosta at the exit of the corner, nearly forcing the Spaniard onto the ground.
Both riders managed to remain upright, with Bezzecchi now leading the race from Acosta, and Martin hot on their heels in third.
For the next phase of the race, the trio effectively ran nose-to-tail, with Acosta keeping Bezzecchi honest despite being on an inferior KTM bike.
However, the Italian turned up the wick on lap 6 of 20, rapidly pulling out a lead of eight tenths before extending his advantage to over a second.
Martin initially managed to stay with the leading duo but fell into the clutches of fourth-placed di Giannantonio when he suffered a major scare going into Turn 1 at the start of lap 7.
But the 2024 champion gradually recovered the lost ground and moved into second when Acosta ran deep at the same corner on lap 14.
Towards the end of the race, Martin briefly emerged as a victory contender, closing Bezzecchi’s lead to under a second. However, the latter was able to respond to Martin’s pace and eventually finish the race with a winning margin of two seconds.
With this result, Bezzecchi joined an elite group of riders to win five races in a row, as well as becoming the first in the modern era to achieve this feat by leading every single lap.
Martin continued his impressive recent form to hold on to second place, while Acosta was once again the only rider to put up any fight to Aprilia as he finished third.
Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura was knocking on the door of a podium result when a technical issue struck his satellite Aprilia with five laps to run, elevating di Giannantonio to fourth place.
Further back, Marc Marquez resisted a late challenge from Tech3 KTM’s Enea Bastianini, the rider he replaced at Ducati, to round out the top five at Austin.
The seven-time world champion spent the early stages of the races squabbling with di Giannantonio and Joan Mir, before dropping to 11th after serving the long-lap penalty he picked up for colliding with di Giannantonio in the sprint.
He gradually fought his way towards the front and passed Bagnaia with three laps to run to salvage some important points for the championship in fifth.
Bastianini rounded off a strong weekend to finish sixth ahead of Gresini’s Alex Marquez, while Luca Marini finished as the top Honda in ninth after demoting a struggling Bagnaia on the final lap.
Gresini sophomore Fermin Aldeguer was classified 11th, as KTM’s Brad Binder, LCR Honda rider Diogo Moreira and VR46’s Franco Morbidelli followed him in 12th, 13th and 14th respectively.
Pramac’s Toprak Razgatlioglu scored his maiden MotoGP point with an impressive charge to 15th, leading his Yamaha stablemates Fabio Quartararo, Toprak Razgatlioglu, Jack Miller and two-time Austin winner Alex Rins.
Mir added another fall to his growing 2026 collection of crashes. Following his tumble on lap six, he has not seen the chequered flag since the opening weekend in Thailand.
We want to hear from you!
Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.
Take our survey
– The Autosport.com Team
Read the full article here