Bezzecchi can’t hide anymore, in Thailand he’s the man to beat: "I feel good as a married man"

Bezzecchi and Aprilia start strong in Thailand: it’s too early to get carried away, but the rider from Rimini is already positioning himself as the man to beat this weekend.

He had finished the last MotoGP test at Buriram with the fastest time and repeated the feat on Friday at the 2026 Thai Grand Prix: Marco Bezzecchi was the quickest of all. He led in FP1 and did so again in the pre-qualifying session, where he set a record time and finished more than four tenths ahead of the Ducatis of Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio. On Thursday he preferred to keep a low profile, today he showed his full potential. An excellent start for Aprilia, which also has Jorge Martin and Ai Ogura directly into Q2.

Interviewed by Sky Sport MotoGP, the Rimini native described how the afternoon session went, which also featured a moment when conditions worsened: "At the start I wasn’t trying to do a time attack, but to put some laps on the soft tire. During the second run on the same tire I saw a black sky and told myself it was better to stop, because there was a risk of rain and we might not have had time to do a time attack. When I did the first one, it was probably the wrong moment: there was rain and also a lot of wind. In fact, few riders improved their time."

The first attempt would have been enough, but Bezzecchi preferred to do another and it went very well: "When I stopped, everyone started to improve, so I went back out to avoid taking risks. I went quite fast, I’m happy. We still need to sort a few things out, but we did a good job. It’s only Friday, let’s stay focused and try to get sorted for Saturday."

Compared to the 2025 MotoGP season, Aprilia has made progress and today the RS-GP26 looks ready to win at Buriram: "The bike has made some nice improvements," commented the Romagna rider, "and I’ve also improved my riding. We did fairly well last year on this track too, but now we’ve taken a small step forward. Compared to the test, it went pretty much as I expected. Clearly, we didn’t imagine the conditions we had this afternoon, with drizzle and wind. In any case, the grip was good. I have to say that with the slightly used soft I expected to struggle a bit less, but instead I’m struggling especially on corner entry, the rear always steps out. With the medium I felt better. Now we’ll try to work and get ourselves sorted."