{"id":224084,"date":"2025-10-19T02:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T02:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224084\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T02:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T02:04:07","slug":"marco-bezzecchi-dominates-australian-motogp-warm-up-ahead-of-penalty-win-quest-francesco-bagnaia-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224084\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Bezzecchi dominates Australian MotoGP warm-up ahead of penalty-win quest, Francesco Bagnaia last"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> win the Australian MotoGP<\/a> despite needing to serve two long lap penalties?<\/p>\n

From the evidence of a windy warm-up, he certainly has the speed.<\/p>\n

The Sprint winner’s advantage peaked at over one second clear of the field, as riders switched to the medium rear tyre (and, for most, the hard front).<\/p>\n

Bezzecchi needs to serve the penalty for causing the scary opening lap incident with Marc Marquez at Mandalika and practised the loop several times again in warm-up.<\/p>\n

The penalty is expected to cost Bezzecchi 5-6 seconds, in total, as well as track position. But he won the half-distance Sprint by over 3 seconds, despite having to catch and pass Raul Fernandez.<\/p>\n

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Home hero Jack Miller<\/a>, who has qualified on the front row and narrowly lost out on third to Pedro Acosta<\/a> in the Sprint, reversed that order by edging out the KTM rider for second (+0.394s from Bezzecchi) in warm-up.<\/p>\n

Pole qualifier Fabio Quartararo<\/a>, whose Sprint chances ended when he picked the medium front tyre, was fourth on the hard front this morning as he looks to make amends.<\/p>\n

Fernandez, Pol Espargaro, Ai Ogura, Alex Marquez, Luca Marini and Fabio di Giannantonio completed the warm-up top ten.<\/p>\n

Wind gusts of 50-60km\/h and overcast conditions awaited the riders as they took to the track for this morning\u2019s ten-minute session, pushing the riders down the home straight but acting as a crosswind at the likes of Turn 3, Stoner corner.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there were no fallers in warm-up and MotoGP will hope the wind calms down \u2013 and risk of rain stays away – for the delayed 3pm race.<\/p>\n

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While some riders – such as Quartararo – have suggested they will gamble on keeping the soft rear tyre for the grand prix, Marini thinks it\u2019ll end in disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll go with the medium, I think for everybody it\u2019ll be the same choice,\u201d Marini said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody wants to try the soft maybe they\u2019ll do the same as Jorge Martin in the past \u2013 fantastic, then the last four laps the tyre will be finished!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bagnaia last after violent GP25 shaking<\/p>\n

Francesco Bagnaia\u2019s <\/a>miserable weekend continued with last place in warm-up.<\/p>\n

Any suggestion that the Ducati Lenovo rider\u2019s problems are purely mental was rubbished by violent shaking from his GP25 as it exited the fast final corner early in the session.<\/p>\n

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The double world champion swapped to his second bike, a change that had helped in previous sessions, but was still 13 seconds off the pace before returning to the pits and ending warm-up early.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some issues with both bikes, and we just need to solve them for the race,\u201d a glum Bagnaia said afterwards.<\/p>\n

Is a top ten possible this afternoon?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think so, but let\u2019s see,\u201d Bagnaia replied.<\/p>\n

Bagnaia and Brad Binder will both serve three-place grid penalties for the race, demoting them to 14th and 16th on the grid respectively.<\/p>\n

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Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can Marco Bezzecchi win the Australian MotoGP despite needing to serve two long lap penalties? From the evidence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,7607,3555,10732,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-224084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-francesco-bagnaia","11":"tag-jack-miller","12":"tag-marco-bezzecchi","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}