RiderTua.com – After finishing in 6th place at the Portuguese GP, Marco Bezzecchi further increased his competitiveness at the American GP. At COTA, the Pertamina Enduro VR46 team rider, who is one of the greatest entertainers and was also part of the fight for the world title with a race win last season, has not been able to repeat his old performance.
Nevertheless, Bezzecchi points to a further upward trend in Texas. Finishing in 8th place in the race was not luck, but a realistic testament to the current performance of the Bezzecchi-Ducati package.
Marco Bezzecchi : Finishing 8th Isn’t a Great Result, But It’s a Nice Little Progress
As at the Algarve-Portimao circuit, by going straight into Q2 and then taking 10th place on the grid, Marco Bezzecchi has laid an important foundation for the two races in Texas. In contrast to his teammate Fabio di Giannantonio who failed to finish the sprint race on the first lap due to technical problems, the student rider of Valentino Rossi brought complete information from Saturday’s sprint race.
The VR46 Racing team clearly drew the right conclusions from these results. Because things went much better for Bezzecchi in the main race in Texas. Racing on this unique track is almost identical to the race 12 months ago. Although he managed to take 6th place with the Desmosedici GP22 for the team then sponsored by Mooney, at the finish line Bez had the same distance as the 2024 winner (13.4 seconds) with the exception of 1 second. For information, his teammate Diggia finished in 8th place in 2023 when he was still on the Gresini Ducati team.
Only 11th in the standings is not a desirable achievement for Bezzecchi, considering the almost hopeless deficit in pre-season testing. The rider from Rimini, Italy, clearly managed to catch up. There is an upward trend, which is also an important aspect of debriefing in Texas.
Marco Bezzecchi said that 8th place is not a great result and is not a result that makes him happy, but he made progress this weekend and that is something to be happy about. There are a number of aspects of driving that now work better. He also couldn’t hope that things would move forward in big steps. But now things are moving forward.
Bez’s words were confirmed in a racing analysis study by his team. After the first phase of the season, in which MarcoBez struggled on track and the first measurable progress that saw Bezzecchi take the lead in the midfield of the Portuguese GP, the 25-year-old was 19 seconds behind the winner – there were still 13 seconds in the COTA race. In the end, the distance to the winner matters more than the position.
The official MotoGP test will be held after the race in Jerez. Here Marco Bezzecchi hopes to find the information he needs to jump to the next level and return to the top.
Bez is very happy with the test plans in Jerez.. Because last year the Italian racer really struggled there because he couldn’t try apart from a few practice starts. Now they have concrete plans to improve the bike. He hopes his team can return to the top with this test, concluded Bezzecchi.
