{"id":750532,"date":"2026-06-21T09:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/750532\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T09:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:19:13","slug":"marco-bezzecchi-banned-from-czech-motogp-race-after-slapping-track-steward-motogp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/750532\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Bezzecchi banned from Czech MotoGP race after slapping track steward | MotoGP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/motogp\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotoGP<\/a> championship leader Marco Bezzecchi was banned from Sunday\u2019s Czech GP after slapping a track steward in the face after a crash in Saturday\u2019s sprint, MotoGP said on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The 27-year-old Italian Aprilia Racing rider crashed out of the sprint with two laps to go. Footage on TNT Sports showed Bezzecchi running towards a steward, pushing him and then slapping him in the face as the steward was standing over his bike in the gravel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cBezzecchi will not take part in the Czech GP,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motogp.com\/en\/news\/2026\/06\/20\/fim-motogp-stewards-suspend-bezzecchi-from-the-czech-gp\/1074489\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotoGP said on its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A document published by the FIM MotoGP Stewards association told Bezzecchi that \u201cfollowing a crash you pushed and struck circuit Marshals who were trying to recover your machine\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThat is an infringement of Article 3.3.2.2, an action \u2019prejudicial to the interests of the sport\u2019,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Aprilia appealed the stewards\u2019 decision on Saturday, but appeal stewards upheld the verdict, and Aprilia said it would not protest any further.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It is another blow to Bezzecchi\u2019s hopes of a maiden MotoGP title after he failed to finish the Hungarian GP two weeks ago, when his teammate Jorge Martin took him out in turn one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Adding to Aprilia\u2019s woes at Brno, Martin will have to serve two long-lap penalties for causing that crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bezzecchi apologised \u201cto everyone, Aprilia Racing and my fans\u201d in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI would like to apologise to the entire MotoGP community for my behaviour toward the trackside marshall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI\u2019m also sorry because I know how much effort and sacrifice marshalls make to ensure our safety. This behaviour shouldn\u2019t happen and there is no justification for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">On Sunday MotoGP <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MotoGP\/status\/2068600813316894987\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">posted a video of Bezzecchi apologising to the steward<\/a> and embracing him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bezzecchi leads the MotoGP rankings with 180 points, ahead of Martin with 165 and Fabio Di Giannantonio of Ducati with 146.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MotoGP championship leader Marco Bezzecchi was banned from Sunday\u2019s Czech GP after slapping a track steward in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-750532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750532","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=750532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}