until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
In the lead-up to the Argentina Grand Prix weekend, Marco Bezzecchi described delivering a first MotoGP win for himself and his team – Valentino Rossi’s VR46 outfit – as “my biggest dream”.
A first win was clearly not just a dream but a full-on target, one the team spoke openly about in the lead-up to the season. The year-old Ducatis in its possession for 2023 were known as formidable bikes, made to look plenty good in off-season testing in both Bezzecchi’s and team-mate Luca Marini’s hands – and Bezzecchi was the one who’d got closer to the top step in 2022. He was probably the smart choice for the season’s first full-time winner.
But that prospect turned from somewhat nebulous to extremely real across Friday and particularly Saturday at Termas de Rio Hondo. Suddenly, Bezzecchi wasn’t just one of the riders who might win – he was the favourite. It was his to lose.
It took only the most cursory of glances at the Saturday sprint to understand that. Bezzecchi ran as low as eighth at one point. He had a costly early collision with Marini, then got absolutely divebombed by the winglet-deficient Aprilia of Maverick Vinales, then botched his first overtaking attempt on Alex Marquez – which meant needing to re-overtake works Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia as a result.
He fitted all of that into 12 laps, and was still 0.072s off the winner at the chequered flag. As well as Brad Binder defended, another lap would’ve probably swung the contest in Bezzecchi’s favour.
“I really did not see anybody really fast,” said Aleix Espargaro when talking up Aprilia’s hopes after a disappointing sprint, before immediately correcting himself: “Just Bezzecchi has a lot more speed than anybody.
“If he started first, he’d give three-four seconds to the second, for sure.
“He was the man.”
Fellow Rossi protege Bagnaia described him as “the fastest” and “unbeatable”. Another Ducati rider, Pramac’s Jorge Martin, said he’d dive into the data to see if Bezzecchi “has something we don’t”.
His fastest lap was a quarter of a second better than anyone else’s in the sprint. His runs in practice suggested he was perfectly adept at keeping tyres alive for a longer distance, too.
And even if there was still some doubt over whether he’d definitely beat the factory Aprilias in a straight fight – Alex Marquez reckoned Bezzecchi “had a similar pace, slightly a little bit worse but similar” – Sunday wasn’t going to be a straight fight anyway.
He was one row ahead of Vinales, two rows and a bit ahead of Espargaro, in position to put a handful of Ducatis between himself and the Aprilias and run his pace out front.
There was no reason at all to regard anyone else as the favourite coming into Sunday. In the dry, anyway. But, of course, it didn’t stay dry.
Bezzecchi had tried to play down his favourite status in the post-sprint comments, but what he said on Sunday revealed the obvious – that he had recognised the very same state of play that was clear to everyone else. Which is why the arrival of rain could’ve been a massive mental blow.
“I felt it this morning. I felt that I was really good. But then, when I saw the rain, I was desperate, honestly,” Bezzecchi admitted to MotoGP’s After the Flag show.
“Yesterday I felt very well on the bike, I said, ‘Tomorrow, if I don’t make any mistake, I think I can really try to win’. It was the first time that I thought this in my [MotoGP] career.
“And when I saw the rain, it was a disaster for my emotions.”
Luckily for him, MotoGP has retained a Sunday morning warm-up, even if it’s been reduced from 20 minutes to 10. Those 10 minutes on a soaked track were enough to settle the nerves, Bezzecchi lapping four tenths faster than anyone else.
“In the warm-up, I don’t know, I jumped on the bike [and] the feeling was incredible. Also on the wet. So I said, ‘OK, I can do this’. And the race was fantastic.”
Bezzecchi’s race was all about concentration from basically the first lap, when he established an eight-tenths lead. During the race, despite him riding “gently” and “sweet” to keep the tyres going, it grew to as much as seven seconds.
He did ease off in the end, perhaps chastened by a “s*** my pants” moment through the same Turn 13 that caught out Bagnaia, and Johann Zarco would’ve probably been a touch faster in the second half of the race anyway, but there was more of a winning margin in Bezzecchi’s ride than the eventual four seconds. He absolutely monstered that race.
Wet races are a bit funny. They’re worth the same amount of points as races in the dry, and demand no lesser a skill level, but a top-tier performance in the wet isn’t necessarily predictive of the wider season. That’s not to devalue rain mastery – just to say it’s obviously responsible for a lesser share of the points in a given campaign.
But the specific circumstances of Bezzecchi’s win – having the big trophy in one hand after Saturday, seeing rain come in to cast major doubt, and then taking care of business anyway in such imperious style – can be telling. He showed the steel of a star – maybe even of a future champion.
