Aprilia MotoGP star Marco Bezzecchi says he never bought into 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 penalised at the start of the weekend by the stewards for causing a collision with Ducati’s Marc Marquez in Indonesia.
But the Aprilia rider showed rapid pace from the opening practice and claimed pole position by three tenths, before dominating Saturday’s sprint race to assert his position as the fastest rider in the field.
This led many people in the paddock, including some of his rivals, to suggest that he could overcome the double long penalty and take a sensational victory on Sunday.
He had already staged an incredible recovery ride in Mandalika, fighting back from a slow start in the sprint that saw him fall to eighth place to claim a last-lap win over Fermin Aldeguer.
The Italian did show some strong pace in the Australian GP to finish third behind Raul Fernandez and VR46’s Fabio di Giannantonio, but said he went into the race believing even a podium was out of his reach.
“It’s been nice,” he said. “Super tough because I honestly never thought about the victory. Only the journalists thought about it, but I didn’t even expect a podium.
“When the race was going on, I tried my best to be [as] far [at the front for] the moment that I did the first long lap, to not finish inside the pack. And my strategy fortunately worked well. To be completely honest, it was the strategy from my team, not me.
“Then after the second long lap, fortunately, I was only sixth. So better than I expected.
“But having pushed so much in the beginning, I couldn’t stress the tyres more. If not, I was going to be dead in the last laps.
“Super happy when I fought with Pedro [Acosta]. I thought that fourth was the maximum. It’s super hard to overtake him. So I said, ‘OK, that’s it. Let’s try to escape from him and secure this fourth place’.
“But then I saw that also with Alex [Marquez], I was catching him. So I said, ‘OK, let’s continue pushing’. And at least I tried.”
Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing
Photo by: Robert Cianflone / Getty Images
Bezzecchi claimed the lead at the start of the race from second on the grid and quickly built a lead of over a second over Fernandez.
After serving his first penalty, he dropped to third behind Fernandez and Acosta, but the second long lap left him in sixth place.
He initially bided his time behind Quartararo, but later overtook him, Acosta and then finally Marquez with two laps to run to claim third place.
Bezzecchi admitted that he had to be cautious while going through the long loop at Turn 4 to ensure he didn’t run wide and face another penalty.
“[With] the second long lap, I tried my best [like] in the first one, so I don’t know if it was slower or not,” he said.
“I wanted to be fast, of course, but also, I didn’t want to risk touching the green and doing the long lap again. So, I kept myself a [margin of a] couple of tenths instead of losing two more seconds.
“Then, I tried to manage. First of all, I had to make the tyre breathe a bit, so it was not a decision to slow down; it was what I had to do.
“But then, when I realised that I was not losing time managing [tyres], I said, ‘okay, let’s try to be patient and if it’s possible at the end, let’s try to be closer’. And then I tried.”
Bezzecchi wouldn’t be drawn when asked if he would have repeated his sprint victory if he didn’t have a penalty to serve on Sunday.
“It’s impossible to say because at the end I did the race with two long laps, of course,” he said.
“I don’t know, because Raul was super good this weekend and I felt good also with the bike. All the Aprilia factory is working in an amazing way. So let’s say that it’s ok like this.”
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