Marco Bezzecchi led from start to finish to win consecutive MotoGP races for the first time in his career at the season-ending Grand Prix of Valencia, the Italian securing back-to-back wins for Aprilia for the first time on Sunday.
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From pole, Bezzecchi – who was victorious in Portugal last weekend – was never headed to win his third Grand Prix of the season, leading an Aprilia 1-2 for the first time in over two years by beating Trackhouse Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez, the Australian Grand Prix winner, by 0.686 seconds over 27 laps.
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Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, from third on the grid, hunted down and passed KTM’s Pedro Acosta for third place with two laps remaining, preserving Ducati’s 88-race podium streak that goes back to the 2021 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
After fading to fifth place from pole in Saturday’s 13-lap sprint won by Ducati’s Alex Marquez, Bezzecchi had few such troubles in Sunday’s race, Fernandez closing to within 0.4 seconds after the Spaniard overtook Alex Marquez on lap 11, but no closer as Aprilia won its fourth full-distance race of its most successful premier-class season.
“I had a lot of fun,” Bezzecchi said.
“In the end, Raul was super fast and getting closer lap by lap, so it was tough. But very happy and super satisfied with the result, and I can’t hope for a better way to finish the season. Now we’re going to celebrate for sure, we need it and we must do it.”
The race began in bizarre fashion when Di Giannantonio’s VR46 Ducati teammate Franco Morbidelli, in seventh on the grid, crashed into Honda’s Aleix Espargaro and fell before the lights went out, the Italian rider fracturing his left hand.
Bezzecchi bolted when the race got underway and then managed his pace, clearing away from the pack by 1.1 seconds on lap 14 and controlling the pack from there as first Fernandez, then Di Giannantonio, progressed to the podium places behind him.
Australia’s Jack Miller finished ninth for his first top-10 Grand Prix result since he finished 10th in the Czech Republic Grand Prix 10 rounds ago in Brno, the 30-year-old coming across the line 15.497secs behind Bezzecchi after running as high as sixth when he overtook Ducati’s Fermin Aldeguer on lap 11.
Miller was passed by former KTM teammate Brad Binder on the final lap to drop to ninth, but improved one place to 17th in the season standings with 79 points, passing KTM’s Maverick Vinales after the Spanish rider retired from the race.
Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia’s miserable season ended with a crash on the first lap after he was shoved off track by Honda’s Johann Zarco at Turn 4, the first time in the two-time MotoGP champion’s career that he’s had five consecutive non-finishes. Zarco earned a long-lap penalty in the incident, and finished in 12th place.
The MotoGP teams and riders will remain in Valencia for a post-season one-day test session, the unofficial first day of the 2026 pre-season, as their final on-track action of this year on Tuesday.
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