Aprilia MotoGP rider Marco Bezzecchi claimed a surprisingly straightforward victory in the Portuguese Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
It was Bezzecchi’s second and Aprilia’s third grand prix win of the season, to go with three sprint wins for both, and means he is all but certain to finish third in the standings behind the Marquez brothers – his rival for the spot Pecco Bagnaia crashing from fourth place.<\/p>\n
There was no repeat of Saturday’s exhilarating sprint duel<\/a> as, after again keeping the lead off the line, Bezzecchi set about controlling the race instead of coming under pressure behind.<\/p>\n Pedro Acosta and Alex Marquez again settled into the places behind him, and once Marquez cleared Acosta on the second lap it looked like he could put Bezzecchi under pressure – but such aspirations didn’t last too long, and by halfway Bezzecchi’s lead was approaching the two-second mark.<\/p>\n It grew from there until Bezzecchi eased off in the final laps, and Marquez even had to manage the gap to Acosta in the final few laps, staying ahead by 0.6s at the finish.<\/p>\n After a disappointing sprint, in which he ran fifth early and went backwards, Bagnaia actually made early progress from fifth by overtaking Fabio Quartararo – but then crashed out.<\/p>\n Another Sunday crash from @PeccoBagnaia<\/a> \ud83d\udca5\ud83d\ude31<\/p>\n This may put a massive dent on his chances to finish 3rd in the Championship \u26a0\ufe0f #PortugueseGP<\/a> \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf9 pic.twitter.com\/jdZ021RtjD<\/a><\/p>\n