It had been 22 long years since Brazil featured on the MotoGP calendar before last weekend’s return to the South American nation in Goiania, at the circuit named after Formula 1 great Ayrton Senna.
As it turned out, 22 years might have been a touch too soon.
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The record books will show Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi assumed the championship lead after his second win in succession to start 2026 and his fourth in a row dating back to final two rounds of last season, but this was a race weekend that made headlines for mostly the wrong reasons.
Heavy rain in Goiania saw the track flooded on multiple occasions in the days leading into the event, the rushed infrastructure to get the circuit – last used for MotoGP in 1989 – ready seeing drains blocked and red mud smeared across the track.
Short of resources to clean up the mess, authorities from the governing State of Goias dispatched prisoners from nearby jails to help remove debris and assist in the clean-up operation as part of a rehabilitation program.
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After Friday’s practice sessions went ahead in intermittent rain, the MotoGP sprint race was delayed by 90 minutes after a sinkhole began to appear early on the near-1km main straight, where bikes pushed to 345km/h. The entire Saturday schedule was changed, Moto3 qualifying pushed to the end of the day, Moto2 qualifying postponed to Sunday morning.
Then on Sunday, moments before the race was due to begin at 3pm local time, the 61,000-strong crowd assembled trackside and a worldwide TV audience were informed that the 31-lap distance would be reduced to 23 – just over the two-thirds race distance requirement for full world championship points to be awarded – after the track surface was found to be breaking up at the chicane at turns 11-12 of the 14-corner track.
Some riders – mostly towards the front of the grid – were told the race distance had changed, and switched tyre compounds as a result. Others weren’t informed at all, or informed too late. “It was s**t,” raged KTM’s Enea Bastianini, 22nd and last on the grid. “The message to the teams arrived at the end during the last minute. We had no time to change the tyres.”
Riders came to their post-race debriefs with contusions and sores from being hit by pieces of broken asphalt being fired at them from riders in front.
It looked and felt improvised, less than professional and not the way a world championship, under the leadership of new owners Liberty Media, would ideally be portrayed to a growing audience.
Even before Sunday’s race, paddock veteran and Trackhouse Aprilia team principal Davide Brivio voiced his concerns.
“I am very sorry to see these things,” Brivio told Sky Italia.
“I am very disappointed with the level of preparation at this circuit. We are repeatedly told that MotoGP needs to improve, but to reach the level we intend to reach, we cannot allow these situations.
“In the meetings we have had recently, they ask us to invest more in exposure, to make ourselves more visible and to update and improve our hospitality. But MotoGP has to fulfil its part. What we want is not to see ourselves in these situations.”
Reigning world champion Marc Marquez, who finished fourth after coming off second-best in a race-long podium battle with fellow Ducati rider Fabio Di Gianantonio, lost third place with three laps to go when he hit trouble where the track was crumbling.
“The asphalt was [coming apart] … if you touch that point, that was the racing line, it was super slippery,” he said.
“I lost the front, and then I went to the kerb. I knew ‘Diggia’ [Di Giannantonio] was close and he would overtake me, but better a fourth place than a crash.”
Yamaha rider Alex Rins came to his post-race press debrief with a swollen right index finger that had been hit by debris, hoping it wasn’t broken. Fellow Yamaha rider Toprak Razgatlioglu emptied pieces of asphalt from inside his racing boots. KTM rider Brad Binder’s succinct summary? “When I was behind all the bikes, it was looking like a little stone festival there. Just stones shooting out all over the place …”.
The weekend attendance – close to 150,000 at the track – shows the interest for the sport in what had been a market that had been neglected since 2004 justifies Brazil having a place on the calendar.
Local rider and reigning Moto2 champion Diogo Moreira, with all of one race’s worth of prior MotoGP experience, was treated like a rock star. Marquez’s race-long duel with Di Giannantonio saw the crowd at fever-pitch, their exultations drowning out the noise of 22 MotoGP machines at full throttle. It’s clear why MotoGP felt the need to return.
But as the paddock packed up on Sunday evening for the journey to Austin for next weekend’s Grand Prix of the Americas, the prevailing sentiment was that MotoGP had mostly, and primarily from a safety perspective, got away with a compromised event rather than celebrating a highly-attended, universally-praised return to the sport for a country that has motorsport in its blood, and with a passion for more.
Bezzecchi left all the drama behind to win his fourth consecutive Grand Prix dating back to last season. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)Source: AP
BEZZECCHI JOINS CHAMPION QUARTET AS WINNING RUN CONTINUES
The rider who’ll head to Texas with fonder memories of Brazil than any other is Bezzecchi, after the Italian spearheaded the Aprilia factory team’s second-ever 1-2 finish ahead of teammate Jorge Martin, the first quinella since Aleix Espargaro led home teammate Maverick Vinales at Catalunya in 2023.
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After winning in Portugal and Valencia – both from pole position – to end 2025, Bezzecchi took pole and won the Grand Prix after crashing out of the sprint race in Thailand to open 2026 in early March, and then led from start to finish after pushing past pole-sitter Di Giannantonio on the run to the first corner on Sunday.
Bezzecchi, 27, has now led for 101 consecutive laps across four Grands Prix, and became just the fifth rider – along with Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia – to win four Grands Prix in a row in the modern-day MotoGP era (2002-on).
After Bezzecchi struggled in a rain-hit practice session on Friday where he finished 20th and needed to come through Q1 to qualify second, owning a slice of history with that aforementioned quick quartet was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Honestly, on Friday I never thought I could leave Goiania with a win, because I was feeling not super good, I was a bit lost,” he said.
“After the practice, I sat down with my crew and said ‘let’s try to calm down, work on everything that we can’. We looked at all the details, all the lines and everything, and we tried to adjust because I wanted to do better.
“Saturday I started in a better way, but I knew it wasn’t enough for the sprint, I wasn’t quick enough to fight for the podium. But seeing ‘Diggia’ [Di Giannantonio], Marc [Marquez] and Jorge [Martin] from behind for a while, I tried to understand, copy them a little bit, adjust my riding. Today, I said ‘maybe I can do it’.”
Bezzecchi’s victory, coupled with a muted weekend for KTM’s Pedro Acosta (ninth in the sprint, seventh in the Grand Prix), was his eighth in MotoGP and saw him take the series lead from Acosta, becoming the first Aprilia rider to lead the standings since Espargaro in Argentina four years ago.
“Today I made a step, so very happy with the pace and the performance,” he said.
“It was a big surprise, I expected to have a similar race to yesterday. It shows the guys are working super hard, and their effort is amazing. They’re giving their heart always. Seeing them like this, I cannot make anything more than giving my all as well.”
Once Bezzecchi beat pole-sitter Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati) into the first corner, the Aprilia rider was never headed. (Photo by EVARISTO SA / AFP)Source: AFP
MARTIN’S DOUBLE PODIUM BANISHES BAD MEMORIES
Bezzecchi’s teammate and 2024 MotoGP world champion Martin was buzzing after closing the book on his nightmare first 12 months with Aprilia with podiums on consecutive days, the Spaniard’s third in Saturday’s sprint coming before he finished second, 3.231secs behind Bezzecchi, 24 hours later.
Martin – who signed with Aprilia for 2025 midway through the previous season after being outmanoeuvred for a place at Ducati’s factory team by Marc Marquez – endured an injury-ravaged title defence last year, multiple major injuries seeing him start just seven Grands Prix and scoring 34 points to finish 21st in the standings.
Already after two rounds of 2026, the 28-year-old has 45 points to trail only his teammate on the table. More importantly, he’s starting to feel and sound like his old confident self.
Martin was overjoyed after taking his first Grand Prix podium since the final race of 2024. (Photo by EVARISTO SA / AFP)Source: AFP
“My emotions are always high, but yesterday was I was even more happy because after a long fight, I was back,” he said.
“Today, I consolidated that result. To close the weekend this way is absolutely crazy. I’ve been locked in for five-and-a-half months, training, recovering, training, recovering. I didn’t miss one day of my diet, I was always focused on my target, and this is the consequence of that. Hard work pays off. Now, I just need to continue. In our sport, it’s always [a focus on] tomorrow, but today it’s time to enjoy.”
Martin took advantage of a lap six skirmish between Di Giannantonio and Marquez – who were fighting for second – to pass both rivals at turn four, and while he never had the pace to peg the gap to Bezzecchi, already two seconds ahead, he had more than enough in reserve to take his first main-race podium since the season finale in Barcelona in 2024, where he secured his world title.
“I’m much better than what I was feeling in Thailand,” he said.
“Maybe in Thailand I was 85 per cent, maybe now 95 per cent. I still miss a bit from my hand and my shoulder, but maybe the most is that I still miss a bit of feeling with the Aprilia. I still ride a bit tense, and sometimes I feel this doesn’t help me. But every day I make on the bike I get better and better. Maybe in one month, one-and-a-half months, I will be at my top level.”
‘REAL TOUGH’ RACE FOR MILLER MARS MILESTONE WEEKEND
Australia’s Jack Miller made history in Brazil as the first Australian to reach 200 premier-class race starts – only the 10th rider in MotoGP history to reach that milestone – but endured a nightmare weekend in Goiania which ended abruptly with a second-lap crash on Sunday.
The Yamaha rider qualified 18th after starting the weekend brightly with a second place in opening practice, a crash in Friday’s second practice seeing him stuck in Q1 for qualifying.
Miller faded to 19th and last place of the finishers in Saturday’s 15-lap sprint, and his Sunday Grand Prix lasted less than 90 seconds before his spill at the second corner of the second lap.
While Miller’s one racing lap made him painfully aware of the disintegrating track surface – “I was getting roostered the whole time … I was dead last so I was copping all the rocks” – he said an electronics glitch as he pulled away after the lights went out was when things went from bad to worse.
“We had an electronic issue at the start … as soon as I released the clutch, the RPM died and I almost stalled, had to catch it and get it back to life, so I was dead-last going into the first corner,” he said.
“Then on lap two it just let go on me mid-corner … Frankie [Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli] and Enea [Bastianini] went long [into turn 2] and I just tried to stay on the line, partial throttle, and the bike locked and I crashed.
“I don’t even know what to say. It’s tough, real tough.
“We were a little bit closer than we were in Thailand, but I need to do better. We’ll see what Austin has for us.”