Why banning MotoGP’s answer to Kimi Antonelli is the right call

MotoGP’s championship leader, Marco Bezzecchi, has been banned from taking part in the Czech GP after he pushed a marshal.

Bezzecchi’s 15-point championship lead over Aprilia teammate Jorge Martin is in danger, as the Italian has been excluded from taking part in Sunday’s Czech Grand Prix in Brno after qualifying in fourth for the main event.

What did Marco Bezzecchi do?

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Having won four of the eight Grands Prix so far in 2026, Bezzecchi crashed out on the eighth lap of the MotoGP Sprint race on Saturday.

While Bezzecchi was picking himself up in the gravel trap, a track marshal lifted his bike to stand it back upright and, while doing so, appeared to touch the throttle as onboard footage showed the revs shoot up while the bike was out of gear.

The marshal can be heard saying, “I just picked it up!” as Bezzecchi approached and could be seen pushing the man, named since as Ladja, and then striking him.

The incident was quickly picked up by the FIM stewards of the event, who called the championship leader to see them to explain his actions.

A document from the stewards afterwards confirmed Bezzecchi would be excluded from taking part in the Grand Prix, saying that, “following a crash, you pushed and struck circuit Marshals who were trying to recover your machine.

“That is an infringement of Article 3.3.2.2, an action ‘prejudicial to the interests of the sport”.

Given the enormity of the decision, potentially affecting his championship position, Aprilia initially appealed the exclusion, but the appeal stewards confirmed their stance was no different from the stewards who banned him.

Aprilia opted against the final avenue open to them, an expedited appeal through the sport’s CAI [Court of Arbitration International], but ruled that out following the upholding of the decision by the appeal stewards.

Realising the enormity of the consequences of his behaviour, Bezzecchi took to social media on Sunday morning to post an apology, saying, “I would like to apologise to the entire MotoGP community for my behaviour toward the trackside marshal.

“I’m also sorry because I know how much effort and sacrifice marshals make to ensure our safety. This behaviour shouldn’t happen, and there is no justification for it. I apologise to everyone, Aprilia Racing and all my fans.”

He also headed out trackside to visit the marshal in person, with the pair seeing hugging after Bezzecchi apologised in person, with the marshal explaining to TNT Sports his side of the story.

“He was surely stressed, and I understand the situation. He crashed, so I did my job,” he said.

“I went for the bike, and I picked it up. I pressed the clutch and tried to pick it up, because it was still on, and the bike started rolling.

“So I wanted to put it back down, and it revved up. He probably thought that I did it on purpose. It was an accident, and then everyone saw what happened.

“He just came to me and apologised to me in person. So I mean, I understand him, and I wish him the best of luck. It really matters to me that he apologised.”

Why sending a clear message matters

Some may feel that the punishment meted out to Bezzecchi is beyond what’s necessary, given the potential implications for the Italian in the context of a year-long championship battle.

But disqualifying Bezzecchi was exactly the right call made by the FIM stewards, and sends a much-needed message across the motorsport environs that such behaviour is not acceptable.

Bezzecchi may be MotoGP’s equivalent of Kimi Antonelli this season and, on the back of consistent success this year as the 27-year-old eyes up his first title in the top tier of motorbike racing, may have thought himself immune from repercussions against a random marshal that, in the eyes of competitors, can feel interchangeable: nothing more than an orange jumpsuit needed to wave the flags and pick up the pieces.

In the moment in which he struck the marshal, would he have believed that the action would be enough to see him struck off the entry list for a Grand Prix? Him, the championship leader, the star of the show? Such basic considerations, especially in the heat of the moment following a disappointment, likely never crossed his mind.

But it’s not the first time Bezzecchi has committed such an act. In 2022, he was fined after pushing a marshal approaching with a fire extinguisher, with force, towards his bike – another incident that was captured on video and can be viewed with ease.

Clearly, then, the Italian’s temperament is fiery – not a problem in itself but, when coupled with an apparent lack of respect for the authority of track marshals and the sacrifices they make to ensure racing can happen, such incidents warrant a heavy hand, and it’s positive to see that Bezzecchi is owning his mistake.

Fans who are longer in the tooth may remember James Hunt’s laddish ways, with the blonde-haired British racer usually coming across as the quintessential charismatic gentleman: a sportsman admired as a James Bond-esque figure, conquering women off-track just as often as he conquered opponents on it.

But Hunt was once caught up in a similar moment of madness when, after a crash with McLaren teammate Jochen Maas at Mosport Park in Canada in 1977, the reigning World Champion sucker-punched a marshal who was attempting to pull him behind the barriers to safety.

The marshal, Ernie Strong, later gave an interview to Road and Track, and said of the incident that he felt “Wronged, blindsided—did that really happen?”

With Hunt seeming to realise what he’d done as the pair retreated behind the barrier, the British driver appeared to try apologising to the marshal.

“If I said anything to him, I can’t remember. Hunt gave me a, ‘Sorry, old man,’ and headed back to the pits…” Strong said.

Hunt was fined $2,000, and Strong later successfully sued him in a British court over the incident. While adrenaline and anger had played their part, which is understandable but not justifiable, Hunt’s willingness to give in to those feelings towards a volunteer showed that the popular Brit wasn’t always impeccably mannered.

For a top-tier motorsport like MotoGP to take such a strong stance against a high-profile name of its own shows that, regardless of your success or on-track performances, no competitor is above showing basic respect towards those around them, and it is a worthwhile reminder of just how important a part every track official plays.

Indeed, this importance within the FIA ecosystem, with which the MotoGP governing body, FIM, enjoys a collaborative and cooperative relationship, was highlighted in a recent report from the F1 governing body, in which it revealed a hidden workforce of 20,000 volunteers that enable the safe and efficient hosting of a world championship on an “extraordinary scale”.

Unpaid volunteers, just like the man Bezzecchi pushed on Saturday, are a critical part of each weekend – all are trained to extremely exacting standards: these volunteers make up the ranks of flag marshals posted around each track, race scrutineers, incident officers, and extrication teams that help out medical personnel.

To use F1 as the example, each championship round relies on an average of 838 volunteer staff, meaning an average of 42 such volunteers per driver, per round, per year.

With almost a million hours of volunteer time given up every F1 season, with the majority of them using unpaid time off or holiday leave to donate their services, the value of volunteer labour per year has been calculated at around €13.2 million.

The full report can be read here.

But, for volunteer marshals such as Ladja, who found himself the victim of a moment of aggression from a competitor for doing nothing more than his unpaid duty, time given up from his own in order to help stars such as Bezzecchi, they do it for the love of the sport – not for glory, not for money, not for fame, but merely to ensure that racing can happen.

Of course, the vast majority of riders and drivers are nothing short of impeccable in recognition of this fact, and positive interactions between competitors and marshals frequently pop up on social media.

But, when a nasty incident does take place, it’s important to make it clear that competitors are not above the volunteers – and it would be all too easy for commercial thinking to outweigh common decency.

MotoGP’s commendable decision to make an example of a star thus sends this message around the world: disrespect these people, and we will show you just how important you really are.

It’s a lesson that Bezzecchi is learning the hard way.

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