For Sunday at Misano, Aprilia had changed colours.
Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin rolled onto the grid with their RS-GPs dressed in white. “Perla Bianca”, Aprilia called it: a special livery celebrating 80 years of Vespa, inspired by Gilles Villeneuve’s white overalls at Monaco in 1981 and the Piaggio/Vespa badge he carried on his suit.
Marco had chosen a much simpler message for his home-race helmet.
“Non mollo l’osso.” I won’t let go.
After topping Friday, setting a new Misano record in 1’29.982, taking pole and finishing second in the Sprint, it almost felt like the perfect summary of his weekend. Then the lights went out. And Bezzecchi’s Sunday lasted less than one lap.
Marco lost control of the Aprilia and went down before completing the opening tour. No second fight with Marc Marquez. No chance to find out whether 27 laps might tell a different story from Saturday.
Just a zero.
At the front, Marc wasted nothing. He won the San Marino Grand Prix in 41’13.013, ahead of Alex Marquez and Pedro Acosta, and left Misano as the new MotoGP World Championship leader.
Francesco Bagnaia made it much further. But five laps from the finish, his race ended on the ground too. Two Italians out. Two DNFs that look identical on the results sheet. But came from completely different weekends.
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Everything that came before the crash
To understand Bezzecchi’s Sunday, you have to start earlier. Because until the Grand Prix, Misano had been his weekend. Marco ended Friday Practice fastest. On Saturday morning, he went even further.
1’29.982.
The first sub-1’30 lap in the history of the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. A new outright record. Pole position. Marc Marquez 0.198 seconds behind. And a second consecutive pole after Aragon.
Then came the Sprint. Marc took the lead from him at Turn 1 and initially opened a gap. Marco did not disappear. He started bringing the distance back down in the second half of the race and forced the #93 to respond again in the closing laps.
At the flag, the gap was 1.068 seconds.
Marc first. Bez second. Not enough to win on Saturday. Enough to reach Sunday knowing he had something with which to try again.
The Perla Bianca lasts less than one lap
Aprilia had added another piece to the story on Sunday.
The usual dark colours were gone. In came white.
The Perla Bianca worn by both factory RS-GPs was more than a special home-race design. It celebrated 80 years of Vespa and reached back into Piaggio history through Gilles Villeneuve, his white 1981 race suit and the Vespa badge on his sleeve.
An Italian bike.
An Italian story.
Misano.
And Marco starting from pole.
There were plenty of reasons to think that image might become attached to something memorable. For Bez, instead, it remains attached to only a handful of kilometres. His white Aprilia is on the ground before the opening lap is complete. And there is almost nothing to analyse about a race that never really had time to exist.
We do not know whether Marco would have had Marc’s pace over the full distance or how tyre management would have changed the picture, or what he could have done with a bike that had been one of the references all weekend.
We only know how it ended.
Too soon.
Marc leaves nothing behind in Misano
With Bezzecchi out immediately, the race at the front develops without him.
Marc Marquez eventually takes control and brings the Ducati home in 41’13.013. Alex Marquez finishes second, just 0.657 behind. Pedro Acosta completes the podium at 2.326. Fermín Aldeguer is fourth. Jorge Martin fifth. Raul Fernandez sixth.
The first six riders across the line are all Spanish.
But the biggest number comes from the championship table.
Marc Marquez: 274 points.
Jorge Martin: 274.
Marco Bezzecchi: 241.
Marc takes the championship lead on countback thanks to more victories. Bez, who had been 22 points from the top after the Sprint, leaves Misano 33 behind. Eleven points lost on a Sunday in which he barely had the chance to defend them.
But 1’29.982 is still there
The zero matters. Especially in a championship this tight. But Sunday cannot erase what happened before it.
Marco leaves Misano without a point from the Grand Prix. He also leaves with the circuit record. With pole position, a second place in the Sprint. With two days in which the #72 Aprilia had constantly looked like one of the bikes to beat.
And that distinction matters: Sunday went wrong. The speed did not.
The championship is further away now.
But Misano did not say that Bezzecchi lacks the pace to fight for it. It said something much simpler, and much crueller. This time, he crashed before he had the chance.
Pecco makes it almost to the end. The answer still does not come
Francesco Bagnaia’s weekend tells a different story. Pecco does not arrive on Sunday after a pole and a Sprint fought at the front. He arrives after another weekend spent searching.
Nineteenth in Practice. Outside Q2.
Fourteenth on the grid.
Thirteenth in the Sprint.
The Grand Prix at least offered more time. More laps to understand and more opportunities to find something Saturday had not given him.
Bagnaia makes it until five laps from the end. Then his Ducati goes down too. Another DNF. The fourth in five Grands Prix. At this point, there is little use looking for a word that makes the situation sound lighter.
Silverstone was supposed to be an isolated weekend. Aragon gave it a sequel. Misano adds another Sunday without the result Pecco has been searching for.
And this time there was no front-running race before the crash. There was still the same search that had begun earlier in the weekend. The answer never arrived.
It is no longer just a bad day
We wrote it after Aragon. At Misano, it becomes even clearer.
For Pecco, this is no longer about isolating one difficult Saturday or one race that went wrong. There is a period to understand. The problem had already appeared on Friday. The confidence to ask more from the bike has not looked natural.
Saturday did not change that. Sunday did not either. That does not mean a verdict is needed. It simply means the problem exists. And it will still be there at the next race until Bagnaia and Ducati find something capable of changing the direction.
The recent results do not look like the Pecco we have grown used to watching. Which is why even the smallest positive sign may matter now. Not necessarily a victory. First, perhaps, he needs to find the possibility of building one again.
Diggia seventh, Bastianini changes his Sunday in Misano
With Bezzecchi and Bagnaia out, Fabio Di Giannantonio is the first Italian across the line. P7, 20.581 seconds behind Marc.
It is less spectacular than his fourth place in the Sprint, but Diggia adds another nine points and another top-ten finish.
Enea Bastianini is almost on his rear wheel. P8, 20.858 seconds down. Only 0.277 separates them. For Enea, though, another number matters more. Sixteenth on the grid. Eighth at the flag. Eight positions gained after finishing 15th in the Sprint.
It does not suddenly turn Misano into an easy weekend, but Sunday leaves him with something far more useful than Saturday did.
Marini scores again, Morbidelli 13th
Luca Marini finishes directly behind Bastianini. The Honda rider takes ninth, 22.911 seconds behind the winner, matching the position he had taken in the Sprint.
One point on Saturday. Seven more on Sunday.
Nothing dramatic, but another weekend in which he keeps bringing something home.
Franco Morbidelli finishes 13th, 28.927 seconds behind Marc. He had started eighth, and the weekend had shown more promise over one lap than the final race result eventually delivered.
So the Italian order at the finish reads: Di Giannantonio 7th. Bastianini 8th. Marini ninth. Morbidelli 13th.
Then two names that never reach the flag : Bagnaia and Bezzecchi.
Same letters, two different stories in Misano
The classification does not distinguish between them.
Bezzecchi: DNF.
Bagnaia: DNF.
Zero points for both.
But Misano tells two very different stories.
Marco crashes after a weekend in which he had kept building. Friday pace. Saturday record. Pole. Sprint podium. Then a Grand Prix that ends before it really begins.
Pecco crashes after a weekend spent continuing to search. For feeling. For confidence, a step forward after Aragon, something that might suggest the direction was changing. It never came.
And perhaps that is the clearest image with which to leave Misano.
For Bez, there is one Sunday to erase inside a weekend that had said many good things. For Pecco, there is another weekend adding one more question to the ones already there. Two zeros.
One interrupts something that was working. The other says there is still something to find.
Misano gives neither of them the ending that had seemed possible. But Marco still has 1’29.982.
Pecco still has the next opportunity to look for his answer. And from here, in completely different ways, both have to begin again.
LINK
Leggi: Misano, Marc Marquez takes the Sprint: Bezzecchi second after a record-breaking pole
Guarda: MotoGP a Misano, Bezzecchi: la caduta del pilota Aprilia al primo giro del GP di San Marino
Guarda: MotoGP, a Misano Bagnaia out: la caduta nel GP di San Marino del pilota Ducati
Guarda: MotoGP a Misano, gli highlights del GP di San Marino
