“Today we made a joke of ourselves”. Direct, no excuses: Marco Bezzecchi is like that, he doesn't hold back – not even on himself. After the solid performance in Le Mans, at Barcelona he returned to the patchy Saturdays of the early weekends, and if the 9th place in the Sprint Race at Montmelò is a signal of difficulty in itself, perhaps even more so is the way it happened.
A reverse gear engaged, against his will, on the eighth lap while he was holding sixth position. From there, the whirlwind of riders behind him began to swallow up the Championship leader: Bagnaia, Morbidelli, Ai Ogura, and almost even Enea Bastianini, who however made a mistake in the end and left Marco with the “small consolation” of the last point available (not entirely guaranteed considering the crash in Q2 and starting from the twelfth spot).
Nonetheless, that single point allows him to extend his lead over his direct rival, teammate Jorge Martin, who went gravel counting for the fourth time this weekend. In short, it seems that Aprilia is struggling in Catalunya. But Bezzecchi doesn't agree: “it is me who is struggling”.
“Problem at the rear? I don't know, it was a somewhat complicated day – begins the Aprilia rider - The crash was not needed. It was a mistake I honestly didn't expect. It was already the second time attack, I thought the front tyre was a bit more ready but it slipped immediately, it completely let me down. And already there things got a bit complicated. Then, starting from the back, it's not easy. But I started well and managed to climb up to sixth place. After that, however, I immediately started to struggle, struggled a lot, and lost all the positions I had gained, until Bastianini also passed me. Then he, fortunately for me, made a mistake and in the end, I passed him again… a small consolation.”
How do you see yourself for tomorrow? In the end, Martín crashed and you gained a point.
“Honestly, I don't even really look at these things. You guys look at them more - he says to the journalists - For tomorrow, nothing, now we have to work all evening to try to understand what we did wrong today, to fix it and ensure it doesn’t happen again tomorrow, hopefully. Then I have to see what I can improve in terms of riding, what I can improve in general, a bit of everything, to try to be faster”
This is the first weekend we are seeing Aprilia struggling. Or was it just a bad day?
“Raúl [Fernandez] is doing very well. Martín, before crashing, was in front and still close to the top three or four. So I think it's more of an issue regarding me this time. It is me who is struggling on this track, especially today, because yesterday I went better. Therefore, I don’t think the bike is struggling”.
Considering you were better yesterday, and given that the other RS-GPs, as you said, aren't doing that badly, can this weekend still be salvaged with some work?
“Of course. Some work will definitely need to be done, because today we made a joke of ourselves – the straightforward Romagna native said - But certainly, we can do well. Tomorrow, the goal is to do better than today. I am always positive, the guys always work at 200% and so do I. So the only thing we can do is put in maximum effort for tomorrow, and then we'll see how it goes.”
How do you work on Saturday night? Because we've seen several Saturdays with a poor Sprint result, and then on Sunday you come to win or take second place. Can you reveal the "magic"?
”What magic… - Bez realistically retorts - I don't do anything special, trust me. I don't think there's any particular secret. I just try to pay attention to everything I can. Then honestly I can't tell everything I do,” concluded the #72.