“Like Tottenham under pressure.”
Hey gang, welcome back to Dre’s Race Review and it’s time for Round 2 of our MotoGP World Championship weekend reviews, as the sport took a two-week break and came back to Goiania for the first MotoGP race in Brazil for 22 years, and the first at Goiania since 1989. How did it cope under 2026 scrutiny? And can anyone stop Marco Bezzecchi? Both questions have similar, not fun answers. Let’s talk about it.
Obrigado
A reminder, this event was only made official just over a year ago. In that time, Goiania had revamped the facilities, including a new paddock area. However, the idea of freshness quickly left the air when it was said on Bluesky that some of the toilets weren’t flushing.
The bigger problem though, was the weather. Brazil had had an obscene amount of rainfall heading into race week, with so much standing water under the bridge of the track a legitimate debate broke out as to whether it was AI-generated or not. Turns out it was real, and there was a mad scramble between the organisers to clear the water (given the poor draining on the track) in time for the racing on Friday. They got there, but of course, it rained again on Friday, and even when the track dried out later in the weekend, we got seepage in a similar fashion to Jerez back in 2024 when that wreaked havoc on the field in the Sprint race with nearly half the field crashing out.
For those who don’t know, when you have older tarmac laid out on the track, when the sun comes up and the water evaporates, it rises to the surface and sometimes it can linger before being cleared, so you can get wet patches, even on a dry track. Not ideal. At all.
We got through a fun Friday that included a dry(ish) to wet practice with some fun surprises – All 5 manufacturers in the Top 5 with Johann Zarco first in the wet, quelle surprise, Toprak third for Yamaha and Bez in P20 after failing to find time in the wet, meaning a loaded Q1 alongside both VR46 Ducati’s.
Track dried up by Saturday, so things shook out a little more like the norm. Di Giannantonio and Bezzecchi both took advantage of the extra 15-minute track time to go all the way from Q1 to the Top 2 spots in Q2, with Diggia scoring just his third career pole position, and his first since what I call the “Lightning” pole at Mugello back in 2022. Shoutout to Fabio Quartararo who pulled off another miracle to end up fourth.
Just when you start prepping for the Sprint, you see the tweets from Brazilian media: “There’s a sinkhole on the track.” You fucking, WHAT?!
Turns out, with all that rain in the run-up to the race, it had started moving the soil underneath the track, and it led to the track giving way on the main straight. Normally, asphalt would take around five hours to set, but they used special quick-drying concrete so that we “only” had an 80 minute delay to the Sprint, which took priority in the running order, with Moto3 qualifying pushed until the last hour of sunlight in Goiania, and Moto2 Qualifying on Sunday morning. Sounds simple, but the behind the scenes carnage was farcical. Pictures of the sinkhole were initially discouraged from going into the public domain, with only distant shots from a handful of journos dropped on social media.
David Emmett made the excellent point that under most circumstances, you’d just run everything on Sunday to make sure the problem was solved overnight – But MGSE would likely lose too much TV money from the blow, given this is already a season where there’s a good chance we’re going to be down a race (Even a November date for Qatar feels like pie in the sky with the conflict in the Middle East showing no sign of going away).
In the end, everything turned out okay. The actual hole was early on in the main straight and offline enough so that it wasn’t a hindrance as the exit of the final corner naturally pulled them away from the sinkhole. But it was a big near miss for the series. One that it wasn’t going to dodge twice.
The Sprint itself was reasonably good. It became a dogfight between Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio. Diggia led the vast majority of the running, but Marquez ran his tried and tested Sprint/GP race method. Hold back early on and weather the early storm, wait for the rear tire to bed in, and then push on late so he doesn’t tuck the front, something we so commonly associate with Ducati. Remember, with it being so strong on rear grip, it’s easy to overload the front and crash.
Marquez came back from passing Fabio Quartararo, and bedded in, got to within three tenths of Diggia and the pressure led to a mistake from the Italian, running slightly wide at the penultimate corner and leading into an easy pass into the last for Marquez. Sprint Win #16, tying him with Martin on the top of the all-time list, and a big counter-attacking blow to Aprilia given how much they dominated Thailand. Game on for Sunday, right?
Shitstorm
After a Moto3 race that was only curtailed slightly due to the track being such a quick lap Scott Ogden’s bike needed more time to be recovered, and a Moto2 race that went without a hitch, we were getting ready for the MotoGP race… but with just six minutes to go, Race Direction announces that the race has been reduced from 31 to 23 laps. It turns out, that the asphalt from Turns 11 and 12 was starting to fall apart and its safety couldn’t be guaranteed. It was the IRTA in conjunction with MSEG that made the call, not Michelin, and it was such a sudden last minute call with the back of the grid told last, that Enea Bastianini didn’t have time to change tyres on the grid before the formation lap. Welp.
And it was a decision that did impact the race. Marco Bezzecchi took the lead early and took off once again, quickly ripping out a 1.8 second lead in the opening laps and never really looked back. Diggia and Marquez went at it again, with Diggia block passing and running Marquez nearly off the track at the treacherous Turn 4 (It had a bump on the racing line), opening the door for Jorge Martin to take second on the Aprilia. Marquez took nearly 18 laps to finally get past Diggia with a block pass into Turn 6, but a run on the asphalt in that Turn 11/12 complex at the end of the race led to Marc nearly losing the front entirely and having to check up, allowing Diggia back past.
Diggia and Marquez both agreed that they felt the asphalt coming apart as they raced on it, and Marc thinks it cost him a podium, and he was probably right. The asphalt problems went further. Simon Patterson did an exceptional job at The Race noticing Alex Rins had a chunk of track in his finger that had spat out of another bike’s exhaust in real time. Both Alex Marquez and Toprak Razgatlioglou both had asphalt in their boots, and when Simon checked the track himself during the night, he could pick up marbled sized pieces of track.
This is unacceptable in every way. This is not how a World Championship level sports event should be run. They just about got away without a major crash and going down to 23 laps may have prevented that, but their star talent and meal ticket nearly had a big near miss. On any level, this was a track that clearly was not fit for purpose and probably shouldn’t have been raced on.
It’s not lost on me that as a sport, we’re losing the fan favourite Philip Island partly due to poor facilities, and a month later, we had this as a new round on the calendar. It screams of hypocrisy and it certainly doesn’t come off as an event worthy of a sport that was bought for £4 billion last year. If you want this side of the Liberty Media portfolio to match the blueprint that is F1, then they have to do better.
On the track itself, Marco Bezzecchi has done what he’s done for the last six months. Take the lead and dominate with overwhelming pace. Aprilia once again had the luxury of Michelin’s stiffer rear casing due to the heat in Brazil (53 degree track temperature on Sunday), and it played to their strengths again, making the race a formality.
With it, it’s Aprilia’s first factory 1-2 with the factory team since 2023, Bez now leads the World Championship for the first time and has lead the last 101 Grand Prix laps in that four race-winning streak, the first ever for an Aprilia rider, and just the fifth man of the modern era to win four straight (Rossi, Lorenzo, Marquez and Bagnaia the other four).
The true test for Aprilia is coming – What happens when Aprilia races on a more conventional track where the rear casing doesn’t boost them? If they’re in range in Austin next weekend (Which remember, they’ve dominated before via Maverick Vinales), we’re in for a hell of a title battle. Mind you, still a tad scary that an 80% Marc Marquez with a nerfed GP26 was still good enough to take a Sprint win and a podium. Game on.
The Lightning Round
Pecco Bagnaia, why are you the way that you are? Man’s giving out bigger Falls from Grace than Oba Femi.
What better way for Jack Miller to celebrate his 200th top-flight start than a crash on the second lap? Joan Mir, why are you the way that you are?
KTM’s honeymoon after Thailand was seemingly cut short. Acosta crashed in Qualifying, was nowhere in the Sprint, and despite a modest Grand Prix, the rest of the factory was barely in the points. Looks like they’ve traded the top speed advantage for more downforce, but the tyre wear issues are still persisting. They look ragged right now.
Whisper it quietly… is Dani Holgado the brighter MotoGP prospect compared to David Alonso given the former’s been a bit more successful on larger machinery? I wonder if that injury Alonso had coming into 2025 and his rookie Moto2 season has done to him what the wrist did to Ai Ogura for a while.
Take nothing away from the fans though – The atmosphere in Goiania was wonderful, some of the most passionate and loud crowds I’ve ever heard at a MotoGP event, especially given we’ve seen bigger than the 61,000 we had on race day. Brazil is just THE Motorsport country of the world, and it deserved better than what it was given.
Despite his nasty highside that cracked his elbow, good to see David Almansa step up in Moto3 so far this season and give the landslide favourite Max Quiles something to think about in 2026. Hell, one more lap in that five lap Sprint finish and teammate Marco Morelli probably challenges for the win.
Sprint Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (Decent) – Not bad. At least you had the intensity of Marquez and Diggia staying close all the way until the crescendo at the end. Even if it was a little tame that it came off a Diggia mistake that opened the door.
Grand Prix Rating: 5/10 (Meh) – Not spoken much about the layout itself until now. Goiania isn’t bad. Certainly fast having a 110mph final corner to go into a 1km straight. But Turn 1 was your only real passing opportunity on the big machinery, besides very risky block passes, or mistakes. And being robbed of 25% of your race because the track wasn’t fit for purpose is always going to leave a bitter taste, especially when it had a direct influence on the result. Improvements need to be made. See you in Austin.