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Marco Bezzecchi passed Raul Fernández with eight laps remaining and rode away to win at Mandalika. Fernández finished second despite two broken fingers, Jorge Martín reclaimed the championship lead, and Aprilia celebrated a historic top-four lockout.
Photograph: MotoGP official mediaMandalika gave Marco Bezzecchi a race that asked for patience before it offered him a clear road. Raul Fernández had led from the opening lap and kept Aprilia’s team-mate close, but Bezzecchi stayed within reach until the decisive moment on lap 19. He passed, opened the gap and rode to victory, his first since Mugello. Behind him, Fernández finished an extraordinary second with two broken fingers, and Jorge Martín took third to return to the top of the championship.
The result carried multiple story to the podium. Aprilia secured its first MotoGP top-four lockout, with Ai Ogura completing the sweep. Martín’s 16 points were enough to move him two points ahead of Marc Márquez, who finished sixth. Bezzecchi kept his own title hopes alive, while Fernández turned a difficult weekend into the strongest Sunday of his season.
Fernández had already made Mandalika his circuit on Friday, setting a lap record, then claimed his first MotoGP pole on Saturday. The Sprint did not go his way. A Turn 1 collision ended his race and left him with two broken fingers. By Sunday morning the question was no longer how quickly he could lap in clean air. It was whether he could manage the physical strain of a full Grand Prix distance.
He answered by making the start count. Bezzecchi attacked the inside at Turn 1 and briefly looked ready to take the lead, but ran wide on the exit. Fernández reclaimed the front and began to settle into the job. Marc Márquez moved into third early, while Martín worked through the group and passed his title rival to take the final podium position.
Fernández held Bezzecchi at around half a second through the early laps. The margin was close enough for the Trackhouse rider to see the Aprilia behind him, but large enough to keep him from defending every corner. Martín followed at a measured distance, preserving his position while the two ahead traded pace.
Bezzecchi began to ask more of the front tyre. His fastest lap of the race brought him closer, and the gap to Fernández fell to four tenths. Martín had slipped further back, leaving the race leader and his pursuer to manage a direct contest. Fernández defended the same line while keeping every exit clean enough that Bezzecchi would have to take a risk to reach him.
The contest stayed readable for the first two-thirds of the 27-lap race. Bezzecchi appeared, studied the gap and waited for the moment when the pass could be made without compromising the next corner. That patience mattered. A move too early would give Fernández time to respond. A move too late would leave no laps in which to turn track position into a victory.
On lap 19, Bezzecchi found the opening and took the lead. Fernández ran slightly wide at Turn 1 after the pass, and the margin immediately stretched to 1.4 seconds. Bezzecchi added another fastest lap and gave himself the space to control the closing stages. With nine laps left, the move had changed the race from a close chase into a test of how much time Fernández could recover.
Fernández could not close the gap Bezzecchi had built. The winner crossed the line 4.260 seconds ahead, with Martín 6.890 seconds behind him. The margin was large by the finish, though it had grown from a race that Fernández had led for most of its first 18 laps. The pass at Turn 1 gave Bezzecchi the clear advantage he had been looking for, while Fernández’s long stint at the front remained central to the result.
The battle behind them kept moving. Ogura and Pedro Acosta fought over fourth, with the Trackhouse rider eventually taking the position. Marc Márquez fell behind both and finished sixth, leaving Mandalika without the championship lead he had brought into the weekend. The Sprint had given him a Saturday victory. Sunday belonged to the Aprilias.
| Position | Rider | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marco Bezzecchi | 40:46.582 |
| 2 | Raul Fernández | +4.260 seconds |
| 3 | Jorge Martín | +6.890 seconds |
| 4 | Ai Ogura | +9.378 seconds |
The top four all rode Aprilias, a first for the manufacturer in MotoGP. Bezzecchi and Martín represented the factory team, while Fernández and Ogura completed the result for Trackhouse. The achievement reflected the depth of the package across both organisations and the way their riders had adapted to the circuit as the weekend progressed.
Bezzecchi’s win kept him within reach of the championship, though Martín’s return to the lead was the larger points consequence. Two points separate Martín and Márquez as the season moves on. Martín had lost the lead after the Sprint, then rebuilt his Sunday around a strong third place. The standings now reward a weekend in which he recovered position without needing to beat the two Aprilias at the front.
For Fernández, second place was earned through a remarkable combination of speed and restraint. He had the pole, the lead and the pain from Saturday’s crash to manage. Bezzecchi eventually found a way past, but Fernández held on to the podium and helped make Aprilia’s afternoon historic. At the chequered flag, the story of Mandalika was written across four bikes in the same colours, with a rider on injured fingers still among them.
