VR46 MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli says his surprise podium in the chaotic flag-to-flag Spanish Grand Prix sprint is dedicated \u201cto the people who are suffering\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Italian struggled to 18th in a damp qualifying at Jerez on his 2025-spec Ducati and was out of the points in the early stages of Saturday\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n
Franco Morbidelli <\/a>was also lucky to avoid being caught up in a tangle between Toprak Razgatlioglu and Lorenzo Savadori with five laps of the 12-tour race to go.<\/p>\n The VR46<\/a> rider was among the first group that included sprint winner Marc Marquez<\/a> to pit for wet tyres as the rain intensified, which vaulted Morbidelli to the podium.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed and deserved\u201d this podium<\/p>\n It\u2019s a result that comes after a tough start to the 2026 campaign for Morbidelli, who is facing an uncertain future in MotoGP.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Speaking in parc ferme, Morbidelli dedicated his result to those \u201cwho are thinking they have no chance\u201d, in an increasingly personal statement.<\/p>\n \u201cCrazy race. I was there behind the whole group and crazy things happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd, yeah, I had the luck to go to the pitbox earlier than everybody. I followed Pecco [Bagnaia] and this amazing result came.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to dedicate this result to the people who are suffering, who are thinking that they have no chance, just thinking that they are worse than everybody.<\/p>\n \u201cMy thoughts are with them. I think about them and I dedicate this kind of podium in that way\u2026 [people have been saying] \u2018he has no chance, he cannot make the result, he has no speed, he has no whatever\u2019.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cAnd here we are. I\u2019m really pleased. I thank everybody inside the team and I dedicate this podium to the people who are suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n He later added: \u201cI\u2019m very pleased with the performance. It was amazing to recover from P18 and then get to the podium was really good.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was something we needed and deserved, I think, because we did a great job, even if it doesn\u2019t look like it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did a great job from yesterday and we went through many things. I\u2019m struggling big time.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not having the right feeling on the bike and the team and Ducati is working big time to give me back a good feeling.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then such results are something that we really need and something that we really deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VR46 MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli says his surprise podium in the chaotic flag-to-flag Spanish Grand Prix sprint is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,23688,806,805,803,804,15119,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-630676","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-franco-morbidelli","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-pertamina-enduro-vr46-racing","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630676","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=630676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}