- Marco Bezzecchi was banned from the Czech GP after striking a trackside marshal twice.
- Marc Marquez wins at Brno, cutting Bezzecchi’s championship lead to just 40 points.
- Alex Marquez proposes a universal kill switch to better protect volunteer marshals.
Alex Marquez has condemned Bezzecchi’s decision to strike a trackside marshal at the Czech Grand Prix, but argued that MotoGP should also introduce a universal kill switch to make life easier for the volunteers who recover crashed bikes.
Marco Bezzecchi arrived at Brno as the championship leader. He left without racing on Sunday. The stewards banned him from the grand prix after footage showed him shoving and then striking a marshal twice in the face during the closing stages of Saturday’s sprint race.
The incident began when Bezzecchi crashed his Aprilia RS-GP at Turn 3 with two laps remaining. A marshal accidentally grabbed the throttle while lifting the bike, causing the engine to rev. Bezzecchi ran over, switched off the machine, and hit the marshal on his way there and again after he had done so.
Aftermath of Bezzecchi’s transgression
Former 500cc rider Simon Crafar led the stewards panel that summoned Bezzecchi to a hearing on Saturday evening. Aprilia team manager Paolo Bonora and motorsport boss Massimo Rivola both appeared on Bezzecchi’s behalf, but the panel rejected their appeal.
The stewards were direct in their reasoning. They said that rider frustration after a crash “cannot excuse or justify physical aggression directed towards circuit personnel performing their official duties.”
Bezzecchi’s prior record also counted against him. In Valencia in 2022, he received a €1,000 fine for shoving a race official after his Ducati caught fire in a crash during FP3.
On Sunday morning, Bezzecchi went to the marshal personally. The marshal, named Ladislav, said Bezzecchi hugged him and gave him his riding gloves.
“He just came to me and apologised to me in person,” Ladislav said. “I understand him, and I wish him the best of luck. It really matters to me that he apologised.”
The championship picture shifted sharply by Sunday evening. Marc Marquez won the grand prix and cut Bezzecchi’s lead by 25 points.
The reigning champion, who was 102 points behind just a couple of rounds ago, now trails by only 40 with 13 rounds left. Jorge Martin closed to within eight points of the lead despite serving a double long lap penalty during the race.
Alex Marquez calls for a universal bike kill switch but draws a firm line on violence
Alex Marquez had withdrawn from the Brno weekend through injury before the incident occurred. Speaking to DAZN, the Gresini Ducati rider said the punishment sent a necessary message, but he also raised a practical concern about how the sport supports its marshals.
“Bezzecchi has already said it, he is super remorseful,” Marquez told DAZN. “A sanction like this is exemplary for the rest of the riders. You should never reach that point, but he surely feels terrible.”
Marquez then pointed to a gap in how MotoGP equips its volunteer marshals. He said riders from different teams have no shared system for shutting down a rival’s bike in a recovery situation, which puts marshals at a disadvantage from the start.
“I’ll also say that we could help the marshals a little more, for example, with a common system on all the bikes to be able to stop them,” he said. “Now I grab another MotoGP bike, another brand, and I don’t know how to stop it. So there we could make the job much easier.”
He also acknowledged that accidental throttle revs during recoveries are familiar to any rider. “It’s happened to me a thousand times too, even with a motocross bike, that when you lift it up you accidentally rev it while pushing,” he said.
But Marquez was clear that none of that changes what Marco Bezzecchi did. “Nothing justifies that reaction, which in no case is correct,” he said.
Whether MotoGP acts on Marquez’s kill switch suggestion remains an open question. But the people standing in gravel traps and running towards wrecked machines are volunteers. They do not get paid to take a punch.
