Marco Bezzecchi remains suspended from the Czech Grand Prix after Aprilia Racing lost its appeal to the FIM MotoGP Appeal Stewards.
The ruling keeps one of MotoGP’s most important Sunday absences in place at Brno, unless Aprilia chooses to pursue the final available route to the CAI and secures a stay of execution before the race. For now, the championship leader is still out of the grand prix.
Aprilia loses its first appeal
MotoGP confirmed that Aprilia’s appeal against Bezzecchi’s initial Czech GP suspension had been denied, with the FIM Appeal Stewards upholding the decision made by the FIM MotoGP Stewards.
The original penalty followed the Sprint at Brno, where stewards found that Bezzecchi had pushed and struck marshals after crashing while they were trying to recover his Aprilia. The official stewards’ decision framed the offence as an action prejudicial to the interests of the sport.
That leaves Aprilia in a narrow window. MotoGP’s official appeal update says a further appeal to the CAI remains possible, normally within five days, and that an expedited process or stay of execution could theoretically change whether the penalty is applied before Sunday’s race. But there is no confirmed Aprilia decision yet on whether that step will be taken.
Why the ruling matters before Sunday
This is no longer just a disciplinary footnote to a messy Sprint. Bezzecchi’s Sprint crash had already turned Brno into a title warning, and the appeal defeat hardens the consequence: Aprilia is set to lose its lead rider from a race where every point has become precious.
The timing also hurts because Aprilia’s Brno weekend was already untidy. Jorge Martin’s penalty problem had put another Aprilia storyline under pressure, while Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura had shifted the competitive centre of gravity by taking pole and giving the satellite Aprilia project a genuine shot at victory.
The official FIM MotoGP Stewards suspension notice means Bezzecchi is not eligible to race unless the legal picture changes quickly. That is the delicate part for Aprilia now: the team can keep fighting, but the closer Sunday gets, the less room there is to turn process into points.
Brno was already a high-risk weekend for Aprilia. After the appeal defeat, it has become a test of how much damage the factory can contain without the rider who should have been central to its Sunday plan.
