Dovizioso rebukes Bezzecchi and Aprilia: “They threw the world championship away”

The rider from Forlì has shared his thoughts on the Bezzecchi-Marquez incident in Qatar and the title race, saying Aprilia threw away a huge opportunity this year.

Marc Marquez and Ducati are now just one step away from winning their second riders’ world title together. It will take very little at Portimao for them to mathematically secure the championship. They have been given nothing, but it is only natural to think that Aprilia squandered a huge opportunity to win the first MotoGP riders’ crown in its history. It will claim the teams’ title and is still in contention for the constructors’ championship, but the big prize slipped away, and there will be plenty of regrets.

In 2026, Noale’s team had both Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin fighting for the title, but in the end Marquez will be the one celebrating. The rider likely to have the most regrets is the man from Rimini: after winning at Mugello, he had a 102-point lead over Marc, only to make a remarkable series of mistakes that completely turned the situation around. Martinator was slower but more consistent than his teammate, but his injury at Phillip Island put a definitive end to his title bid.

Andre Dovizioso, who had his fair share of battles with Marquez during his MotoGP career, made a very relatable comment on his podcast when discussing the controversial Marquez-Bezzecchi incident in the Lusail sprint race: “What happened over the weekend sums up Bezzecchi and Marquez’s 2026 season. Bez has been incredibly strong this year, because he took a step forward from 2025. He came in full of confidence after finishing last season very well, and he had a bike that was probably a little more competitive than the Ducati. But he threw too much away. What happened in Qatar is the same thing that happened throughout the season.”

The current Yamaha test rider believes the man from Rimini did not handle the situation well last Saturday: “Crashing in the Sprint meant another zero in a situation where he was faster. When you’re faster, you can take a safer approach to try to bring home the win. Instead, he dived up the inside without worrying too much about what might happen.”

Dovizioso, who considers the Lusail incident a racing incident with no one to blame or penalize, hopes Bezzecchi will use what happened in the Sprint and throughout the 2026 season to improve from 2027 onward: “If you have the race in hand because you’re faster, that’s not how I’d play it as a rider. Only if I’m one or two laps from the end and can’t find a solution would I try everything. I don’t know whether Bez understood that and was angry about it, because he got caught out again this time, or whether he was genuinely furious with Marc and disagreed with him. I hope he has understood, because it’s all experience that will serve him well in the future.”

Did Bezzecchi and Aprilia throw away the 2026 MotoGP world title? After analyzing the season, Dovizioso can only agree, while acknowledging what Marquez and Ducati achieved: “Bezzecchi and Aprilia were faster than Marquez and Ducati, and they had built up a lead of more than 100 points. If you didn’t win the title, it means you threw it away. Then there’s what Marc managed to do after his surgery, which is incredible. He himself said that mentally he is in the best shape of his career. Mentally, he made a huge difference this year compared with every other rider; he had to adapt to the limitations he was facing. But Bezzecchi and Aprilia were not good enough, and so they may have thrown it away.”

2026 was Noale’s best MotoGP season yet. The improvement over previous years is clear, as is the fact that they had a real chance to finish the season with a historic riders’ title in the trophy cabinet. Perhaps a lack of experience proved costly, especially for Bezzecchi, who had never fought for the world crown before and at times overdid it without any real need. There will be plenty of regrets in the Aprilia garage, but also plenty of motivation to work even harder and bounce back in 2027, the year of the new technical regulations and Pirelli tyres.

-> Follow Corsedimoto on Instagram