MotoGP: 2022 rookie profile – Marco Bezzecchi

/Marco Bezzecchi joins the newly formed Mooney VR46 Racing Team for 2022.

Marco Bezzecchi has had a relatively rapid rise to the premier MotoGP class completing just five full seasons on the Grand Prix stage, spending two of those on uncompetitive machinery and battling for the title in the other three seasons.

He made his debut in the class back in 2015 for the San Carlo Team Italia at Qatar riding in place of fellow VR46 Riders Academy rider Stefano Manzi who could not race as he was only 15 years old at the time, he competed three more times between here and 2017 scoring zero points, however he’d done enough in the Italian CIV championship under the watchful eye of the VR46 Riders Academy to sign for the CIP Moto Moto3 team aboard the Mahindra, or as I like to call it, the career destroyer.

Bezzecchi on his Moto3 debut in Qatar in 2015, it wouldn’t be until 2017 that he got a full time seat.

As a Moto3 rookie in 2017 Bezzecchi struggled to show what he was about due to the uncompetitive nature of the Mahindra and scored points in only four races, however managed to bag himself a superb P3 at Motegi gaining the attention of many teams who had realised that actually, he was pretty good. With the withdrawal of Mahindra in 2017 it meant Bezzecchi was free to ride more competitive machinery and signed with the PrustelGP squad aboard a KTM for the following year in 2018.

This was where he could show what he was truly about, in only his second season in the Grand Prix paddock Bezzecchi battled for the Moto3 title eventually finishing up in 3rd place overall after getting caught up in other riders’ accidents, being demoted from the runner up spot in the final round.

This was an incredible turn around from P23 overall as a rookie in 2017 to P3 overall in 2018 thanks to competitive machinery, he walked away from the class after just two seasons with 3 wins and 10 podiums to his name, signing for Red Bull KTM Tech3 for 2019 on the KTM Chassis.

The KTM year, the less said about it the better.

Ah that fateful tale of uncompetitive machinery, 2019 was the year KTM really didn’t give too much of a shit about Moto2 and instead had diverted their attention to their MotoGP project, this meant that every KTM Moto2 rider was dealt a pretty tough hand with even Brad Binder and Jorge Martin struggling in the ‘factory’ KTM squad, Bezzecchi would once again have a terrible time only scoring points in four races with a best of P10 in Thailand, thankfully though space had opened up in the Sky VR46 Moto2 Team for Bezzecchi aboard a competitive Kalex for the 2020 season.

Yet again he would show extreme speed on competitive machinery and yet again in only his second season in the class Bezzecchi would fight for a world championship picking up an impressive two wins and seven Moto2 podiums to finish in P4 overall, remaining in title contention until the final round of the season.

The Italian and his wildly long hair.

2021 was to be an even better year, he would stay with the trusty VR46 squad and battled for even more wins and podiums, unfortunately due to the dominant level of Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner Bezzecchi couldn’t get close to the pair to truly fight for the title however managed to ‘beat the rest’ with a solid P3 overall that included one win and seven podiums, he looked like he struggled throughout the season but in reality no one could touch the Red Bull KTM Ajo riders who would consistently finish in 1-2 in most sessions and races.

Bezzecchi’s career would follow natural progression and he would be hired to race in the brand new VR46 Racing Team in the MotoGP class pairing his 2020 teammate Luca Marini aboard a Ducati Desmosedici GP21, he has already looked strong during testing and could pose as a solid threat to the rookie of the year title this year.

Featured images – VR46 Racing Team 

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