Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola believes Marco Bezzecchi “needs a break” after a bruising run of races that has seen him lose the lead of the MotoGP championship.
Bezzecchi was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons last month, and his title challenge took a huge knock after two non-scores in the Czech and Dutch Grands Prix.
The Italian first became embroiled in a major controversy for hitting a marshal in the Brno sprint, an incident for which he was banned from the following day’s race. A week later at Assen, he crashed on the second lap while attempting to recover lost ground, throwing away more valuable championship points.
Having also suffered a nightmare Hungarian GP at the beginning of June, where he was taken out at the start by team-mate Jorge Martin, Bezzecchi has now failed to score in three consecutive Sunday races.
While Rivola suggested Bezzecchi’s Assen crash was all of his own making, he was sympathetic to his rider’s plight, and said the summer break couldn’t come at a better time for him.
“What can I say? We’ll send him on a week-long vacation, hoping first and foremost that he’s okay and that he’s willing to go,” Rivola said after Sunday’s race.
“He definitely needs a break, because lately he’s been through just about everything. So it’s understandable that he might be feeling a bit under pressure.
“That said, he shouldn’t have made that mistake, especially since it happened in a spot where you can really get hurt.”
“We all make mistakes,” says Massimo Rivola
Photo by: Aprilia Racing
Rivola was particularly critical of Martin after the Spanish rider wiped out three Aprilia-mounted riders, including Bezzecchi, at Balaton Park.
However, he believes the reigning world champion showed greater maturity at Assen, citing his measured ride to third place as proof.
Martin now leads the championship by seven points from Bezzecchi, with Fabio di Giannantonio a further nine points adrift on the best of the Ducatis.
“Given that we all make mistakes, in Hungary I said that a world champion doesn’t make these mistakes because he knows how to fight for the world championship, which is exactly what he did here,” said Rivola.
“He secured a pole position that only he could have achieved: on Friday and Saturday morning, the Aprilia wasn’t the fastest over a single lap, but he managed to take pole position thanks to his talent.
“In the race, he was outstanding, he got off to a great start, was pulling away, and when the Trackhouse riders began to close in, he didn’t do anything reckless but realised that finishing third was a positive result.
“That’s the attitude a rider who knows how to win a world championship needs to have.”
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