Aprilia has revealed Marco Bezzecchi suffered “no broken bones” after his frightening incident with 2025 MotoGP champion Marc Marquez in the Indonesian Grand Prix.
Polesitter Bezzecchi slammed into the rear of Marquez’s Ducati at Turn 7 on the opening lap after a poor start dropped him down the order in Mandalika.
Both riders ended up in the gravel trap in a violent accident, hitting a ‘step’ in the run-off that has been criticised by several other riders.
Marquez, who was crowned champion just last Sunday in Japan, was diagnosed with a shoulder fracture and will return to Spain to undergo further evaluation.
Bezzecchi himself had to be transported to a nearby hospital for check-ups, but Aprilia says initial analysis confirmed he had avoided serious injury.
“It was clear Marco was the fastest rider during this weekend, so obviously the expectation was very high,” Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola said. “Shit happens. This is racing at the end.
Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
“Marco is ok. We just got the news from Dr [Angel] Charte that he was brought into the hospital for a scan and there’s no broken bones. He has a lot of pain, maybe the pain is also the sum of the two crashes: the one of Motegi and this one.
“First of all, we need to apologise to Marc because of what happened. OK, it’s racing, but it’s always very bad when we see crashes and you are part of putting someone out of the race, so apologies to him and his team.
“I saw Tardozzi saying Marco apologised to Marc twice. It’s really something that we would like to avoid seeing, but in this kind of competition, you know how tight the performance is in MotoGP is.
“They are all warriors that try to get the best out of the bike, maybe sometimes not thinking too much about strategy, because he clearly had the pace to recover. He did that yesterday in half the number of laps.”
Bezzecchi had been in dominant form in Indonesia, taking pole position by four tenths of a second and clinching victory in the sprint race despite a slow start dropping him to eighth position.
He made another poor launch in the grand prix, before the crash with Marquez brought a premature end to his weekend.
Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
With Bezzecchi retiring and Raul Fernandez only managing sixth on the Trackhouse-entered RS-GP, the Indonesian GP marked a major missed opportunity for the Noale-based marque.
It had already been reduced to just two riders in Mandalika, with both Jorge Martin and Ai Ogura being forced out at the start of the week due to injuries.
Bezzecchi will also have to meet the stewards after returning from the hospital, and Rivola expects him to be penalised for causing a collision with Marquez at the next race.
However, the Italian praised the performance of both Bezzecchi and the team during an injury-hit campaign for the marque, saying it remains determined to beat KTM to second in the standings.
“We are quite focused on what we are doing. Maybe it’s difficult to see from the outside, but despite this season where it was never clean in terms of rider line-up, we are still quite motivated, we still want to be the second manufacturer in the championship.
“Personally, I think that Marco deserves to be at least third in the championship. I guess he will get some penalty for the next race, but I tell you that we won’t give up.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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