Ducati’s Marc Marquez fended off Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi to win the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday, rebounding from a Saturday sprint crash and moving closer to the MotoGP championship.
Bezzecchi had inherited victory in the sprint when Marquez crashed out. This time, however, the determined Spaniard overtook the Aprilia rider on lap 12, having started on the second row of the grid, and never looked back.
Marquez's 11th race victory of the season takes him to 512 points – a record tally for a MotoGP rider in a single season – and he celebrated his victory by unzipping his leathers and holding his red suit up on the podium like a matador.
Gresini Racing's Alex Marquez finished a distant third and brother Marc, with a 182-point lead, can clinch his seventh title at the Japanese Grand Prix this month.
"Today I gave everything I had. It's true that the mistake from yesterday gave me extra concentration, extra power, extra energy," an exhausted Marc said.
"I was just there following him (Bezzecchi), trying to push him always super close, because it's impossible to do 27 laps without any mistake. And in the end, he did a small mistake on turn eight, and then I lead the race.
"Super important for Ducati, I felt the pressure this weekend."
Six more rounds remain, but Marc can now win his first title since 2019 if he outscores Alex by just three points in Japan.
At the start, Marc had a superb launch off the line and he veered to the outside to quickly move up to second behind polesitter Bezzecchi while Alex was pushed down to third.
As the top three streaked away, Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo found it difficult to maintain that pace and he was soon battling with KTM's Pedro Acosta, who eventually found his way past the former champion to chase the leading pack.
But Acosta's hopes of fighting for the podium went up in smoke when he retired with a broken chain, with the young Spaniard furiously wagging his finger at the bike after he stopped on the side of the track.
Ducati's Francesco Bagnaia had another race to forget in a nightmare season for the twice champion who crashed out of seventh place, his third place in the championship now seriously under threat from Bezzecchi.
Up front, Marc continued piling the pressure on Bezzecchi and the Aprilia rider finally buckled on lap 12 when he was a breath late on the brakes and went wide, opening the door for the red Ducati to ease past him and into the lead.
Bezzecchi gave chase, unrelenting and eager to reclaim the lead. But Marc remained calm and the Spaniard was in no mood to crash out of the lead twice in one weekend.
Bezzecchi shook his head in frustration with six laps left as Marc set the fastest lap of the race.
Marc tried his best to shake off the younger Italian, who found an extraordinary late race pace to challenge for the lead, but the Ducati rider responded once again as they traded fastest laps and left third-placed Alex more than six seconds behind.
"Besides (missing out on) the victory, this is maybe the best race of my life, because I was super competitive all weekend -- pole position, sprint win, second place," Bezzecchi said.
"I was close to Marc who is at the moment the strongest on the grid. I'm very happy, I gave my all, I'm destroyed!"
VR46 Racing riders Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio finished fourth and fifth, respectively, while Gresini's Fermin Aldeguer was sixth.
