Marco Bezzecchi says he surpassed his own expectations to claim a podium finish in the British Grand Prix sprint, but admitted to feeling exhausted and “destroyed” after an intense day.
While the factory Aprilia rider had topped Friday’s main practice session on his return from the injuries he sustained at the Sachsenring, Saturday was always going to provide the first real test of his fitness as the business part of the weekend began.
As the circuit record got shattered again in qualifying, Bezzecchi had to push to his limit to post a time of 1m56.183s and book a spot on the second row of the grid.
This already put a lot of strain on him, but he then had to complete 10 laps in a row in the sprint – twice as many as he had managed on a single run in FP2 earlier in the day.
Battling through pain and a strange sensation on his foot, Bezzecchi recovered from a slow start to repass Marc Marquezs’s Ducati on lap 5 before overtaking Fabio di Giannantonio for third position.
The result marked the Italian’s first Sprint podium since Hungary at the beginning of June and helped Aprilia secure its first-ever top-three lockout in a Saturday race.
Asked whether the outcome of the sprint exceeded his expectations a little bit, Bezzecchi said: “Maybe more than a little bit.
“I felt super, super tired. I started to struggle a lot. Four laps to the end, I really felt a drop in my physical performance.
“It was tough. I didn’t expect it at all because this morning when I woke up, I felt much worse than yesterday.
“After qualifying, I felt destroyed. Qualifying really destroyed me. To make that lap, I really had to put on a kind of effort that was always tough.
“So, I was pretty worried before the sprint, apart from the adrenaline that I had in the first couple of laps. After that, the pain and the tiredness were a lot.”
Having undergone an operation on his broken shoulder just a month ago, Bezzecchi continues to lack shoulder strength, while also struggling with severe pain and limited mobility in his knee.
Elaborating on his physical limitations, he added: “[I feel pain] in the left part. Overall, everywhere because I still don’t have enough power in my upper body on the left, because I train with the shoulder, but I couldn’t really train like nothing happened.
“And the leg, I barely trained the last couple of days before coming here.
So to completely bend the knees, the pain is a lot, and I started to feel a strange sensation on my foot also when I was shifting down.
“It is also on the right side because to compensate [the left side] I need to [use the right side]. Fortunately, the right side is still good.”
Sunday’s race will run to 20 laps, posing an even bigger challenge for erstwhile championship leader Bezzecchi.
His only saving grace could be the medium rear tyre, which is expected to be more durable than the soft compound that most of the field used in the sprint.
Bezzecchi admitted that it would be tough to maintain his speed over a grand prix distance and played down his chances of securing another podium finish at Silverstone.
Asked if he could replicate his sprint result, he said: “I hope. Obviously, I hope, but honestly I don’t think so.
“It will be hard to wake up feeling like today. It can already be a good result if I wake up tomorrow and I feel similar to now. That is pretty bad, but at least the same [as today],
But tomorrow with a longer distance, hopefully Jorge will start slower. If the pace can be a little bit slow, I can manage for a couple of laps more. Then I will try to survive.”
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