Marco Bezzecchi dominated the 2025 Australian Grand Prix sprint at Phillip Island, taking a commanding win for Aprilia Racing.
The Italian converted the great race pace he already showed on Practice Friday into an unchallenged win, finishing 3.1 seconds clear of Raul Fernandez, with Pedro Acosta completing the podium for KTM.
Even before the start, a bizarre moment marked Bezzecchi’s warm-up lap: his Aprilia struck a seagull, the remains getting stuck in the fairing for the race’s duration. It did little to slow him.
Despite losing the holeshot off the line to Fabio Quartararo, the Frenchman’s advantage from pole only lasted for a few metres as his Yamaha wheelied down the main straight and dropped him to 6th by Turn 3.
🚥 LIGHTS OUT in the #TissotSprint 🚥
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) October 18, 2025
Rocket starts aplenty as @alexmarquez73 leads into T1!#AustralianGP 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/ogvMQIYe22
Alex Marquez briefly grabbed the lead from sixth, but Fernandez was quick to move past through the Southern Loop, with Bezzecchi following him by Turn 4 as Marquez ran slightly wide.
From there, the Aprilia pair pulled clear of the field. Fernandez held the advantage through the opening laps, but Bezzecchi shadowed his every move.
On Lap 6, the Italian ran deep into Turn 10 to avoid contact, losing nearly a second, yet erased the gap within two laps.
By Lap 10, Bezzecchi’s momentum was unstoppable. He launched his move through the Southern Loop and immediately, right off the overtake, began to stretch his lead, opening a three-second gap by the flag.
Behind them, the fight for third produced some of the best racing of the season. Acosta’s aggressive charge saw him pick off both Miller and Marquez down the main straight on Lap 7, before turning into a master defender to secure the final spot on the podium across the line.
Down to the wire for P3 🤯#AustralianGP 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/DYpj5nnzGX
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) October 18, 2025
Miller launched a final attack into the last corner but fell just 0.066s short of a home GP Saturday podium, while Di Giannantonio’s late surge from eighth wasn’t enough to break into the top three either. The Italian ended fifth, narrowly behind Miller and half a tenth off the podium.
Marquez settled for sixth, the best of the 2024-spec Ducatis, while Quartararo finished seventh after an uneventful run following his poor launch.
Honda’s Luca Marini came home eighth ahead of KTM tester Pol Espargaro, with Enea Bastianini rounding out the top ten.
Crashes for Brad Binder and Fermin Aldeguer punctuated the race. Binder went down early after clearing Aldeguer, who later crashed at Siberia.
For Ducati, the race quickly turned into a disaster. Bagnaia slipped from 12th to 19th and never recovered, while test rider and Marc Marquez replacement Michele Pirro finished last, the factory team completely absent from contention.
