Here's the thing about tyre gambles in MotoGP: when they work, you look like a genius. When they fail, you're left standing in the paddock wondering where your pace went. As Motorsport.com reports, Marco Bezzecchi found himself on the painful end of that exact reality at Motegi, admitting he was simply "one second too slow" during the Japanese Grand Prix sprint after a fateful decision to run Michelin's medium rear compound.
Out of the entire grid, only two riders rolled the dice on the medium for the half-distance Saturday race: Aprilia Racing's Marco Bezzecchi and Pramac Yamaha's Jack Miller. It was a calculated risk, but it backfired immediately. Even though three riders were wiped out at the start by a crash triggered by Alex Marquez, the 27-year-old Italian drifted backwards through the order, eventually bringing the factory Aprilia home to a distant sixth place.
I don't want to say anything wrong too early. So I prefer to check everything.
The math in the title fight got uglier too. With Ducati's Marc Marquez taking the win and Jorge Martin salvaging third despite late issues on the soft rear, Bezzecchi leaked crucial ground to his rivals in the championship. On paper, however, the choice had felt solid. During FP2 on Saturday morning, Bezzecchi had posted multiple laps in the 1m43s bracket, topping the session with a 1m43.321s on a rear tyre that already had 16 laps on it, ahead of team-mate Martin and KTM's Pedro Acosta.
"On paper, for myself, it was the right choice," Bezzecchi said. "Then obviously with the result, it's not the right choice. But on paper, it was good because, in the end, I could do it. I had to survive the first two and a half laps. But after that, I was super confident. So, it was a decision that was not taken because I was slow and I said, 'OK, let's risk for the medium, maybe I can make it better.' We thought about it and it was not bad. But at the end it's like this, so let's move on."
Yet the speed vanished when the lights went out for the sprint. While team-mate Martin managed to match his own FP2 pace within a tenth during the 12-lap contest, Bezzecchi broke the 1m44s barrier just once all afternoon. His best sprint lap was a sluggish 1m43.873s—a full five tenths off his morning reference.
"Yesterday, I saw that my pace was good, but not as I wanted," Bezzecchi explained. "I was also a little bit on the limit with the temperature from the rear tyre already yesterday. So we decided to try to work on the medium this morning, to see if I could have at least the two options. And with the medium this morning I was feeling good, I was riding quite fast. So, because of this pace and because of the less risk with the temperature, I tried to make this decision. But at the end, today I was riding a bit too slow, one second too slow."
Now comes the frustrating part for the Aprilia camp: nobody knows why the beast refused to cooperate when it counted. When asked for an explanation behind the massive drop-off between practice and the race, Bezzecchi drew a complete blank. "I cannot explain it," he admitted. "I don't want to say anything wrong too early. So I prefer to check everything."
