Marco Bezzecchi left the Red Bull Ring with two third-place finishes, one in the sprint and one in the Austrian Grand Prix. The Aprilia rider’s weekend kept him in contention on track, but he still lost championship ground: he is now 42 points behind his team-mate Jorge Martin. The result also marked a response to the costly disappointment of his crash at the San Marino Grand Prix.

Bezzecchi was immediately involved in the fight during the 28-lap grand prix. He led briefly on the opening lap and tried to make a move on Martin, before deciding that the Aprilia rider ahead had slightly better pace. Once Martin passed him, Bezzecchi expected the front of his bike to become harder to manage. Pedro Acosta then went through, and a front-end loss at the final corner sent Bezzecchi wide and cost him time. He recovered enough pace to close back in on Martin later in the race.

A small error at Turn 1 ended his last realistic chance to try again. Speaking to Sky Italy, Bezzecchi stressed how decisive tyre management is at the Red Bull Ring: a gap that looks harmless can become a major disadvantage. His response was an intensive search for speed through data analysis, ideas from different people and alternative approaches. He summed up the mental workload by saying that his “brain was on fire”, in comments relayed by Crash.net.

The circuit amplified the knee problem

Bezzecchi is still dealing with a knee injury, and it affected him during the race. He told the official MotoGP website that the circuit makes the issue harder because the rider spends long periods on the motorcycle with the knee bent. He regarded third place in Sunday’s race as deserved, while describing the sprint podium as partly fortunate because of Pedro Acosta’s crash. The Austrian weekend therefore combined a solid double podium with a physical limitation that remains part of Bezzecchi’s challenge.