Marco Bezzecchi won the Qatar MotoGP 2026 Grand Prix from pole, and Marc Márquez still left Lusail 60 points clear of Jorge Martin with two rounds to run. The grid was thin, with Yamaha absent, Francesco Bagnaia out with a broken right foot after the Sprint and replacements at Honda and Gresini. Márquez won the Sprint, took second on Sunday and keeps the championship in his hands.
Qatar MotoGP 2026 Friday: Di Giannantonio Under the Lights
At Qatar MotoGP 2026, Márquez led FP1 with a 1′52.278, 0.110 seconds ahead of Bezzecchi. Fabio Di Giannantonio was third, Pedro Acosta fourth and Martin fifth, 0.7 seconds back. Jake Dixon, standing in for Joan Mir at Honda HRC, and Brad Binder both crashed and walked away. Acosta’s session ended early with a late problem on his KTM.
Under the lights Di Giannantonio went quickest with a 1′50.406, with Márquez 0.142 seconds behind. Bezzecchi was third, then Bagnaia and Raúl Fernández. Martin was seventh and moved straight into Q2 with Márquez, while Acosta was 14th and had to go through Q1. Iker Lecuona rode for Alex Márquez at Gresini, and Fermín Aldeguer came back.
Qatar MotoGP 2026 Qualifying: Bezzecchi Takes the Lap Record
Bezzecchi set a 1′50.065 in Q2 and then lowered it to a 1′50.028 for pole, the fastest lap ever recorded at Lusail, at 176.0 km/h. Márquez was second, 0.266 seconds back, after losing time in the last sector of his final run. Di Giannantonio completed the front row.
Fernández was fourth, ahead of Bagnaia, Ai Ogura, Johann Zarco and Acosta, who came through Q1 alongside Aldeguer. Aldeguer started ninth and Enea Bastianini tenth. Martin was 11th after running out of room in the last sector, and Binder, who crashed early in the session, was 12th.
Qatar MotoGP 2026 Sprint: Márquez Wins and Bagnaia Is Out
The Sprint was red-flagged on lap one. Aldeguer braked too late up the inside of Acosta at Turn 16 and took out Bagnaia, who left the gravel on a stretcher, conscious and talking. Bagnaia later withdrew from the weekend with fractures in his right foot. Aldeguer picked up a double long lap penalty for the restart.
Márquez took the holeshot on the 10-lap restart, ahead of Bezzecchi and Di Giannantonio. Bezzecchi tried a move at Turn 15 on lap two, Márquez came back onto the line for a late apex and the two touched. Bezzecchi crashed out. The stewards took no further action.
Martin started 11th with a fractured right wrist, climbed to third and attacked Márquez without finding a way through. Di Giannantonio passed him for second at Turn 2 on the last lap. Fernández, Zarco, Acosta, Ogura, Bastianini and Lecuona followed. Márquez took 12 points and Martin seven, and the title lead stood at 49 points before Sunday.
Qatar MotoGP 2026 Sunday: Bezzecchi Wins Under the Floodlights
The race ran 22 laps in the dry, with air at 31 degrees and the track at 33. Bezzecchi held the lead into Turn 1 from pole, and Fernández went past Márquez for second. By lap three the Aprilia pair were more than 1.5 seconds clear. Acosta, Márquez’s teammate for 2027, passed him for third on that lap, reported tire-pressure warnings and was behind him again by lap six.
Martin rose from 11th to eighth on the first laps, only for Di Giannantonio to take the place back at Turn 12 on lap one. Martin climbed to seventh on lap 11 as Di Giannantonio lost pace. At half distance Bezzecchi led Fernández by 1.2 seconds, with Márquez and Acosta together 3.9 seconds back.
Márquez set the fastest lap of the Qatar MotoGP 2026 race, a 1′52.558 on lap 13 that beat his own race record from 2025, and passed Fernández for second with four laps to go. Bezzecchi won by 3.083 seconds at 171.1 km/h. Fernández was third, 3.614 seconds back, for his sixth podium of the year, riding with two broken fingers. Ogura was fourth for a Trackhouse pair behind Aprilia’s winner.
Bastianini was fifth for Tech3, Acosta sixth and Martin seventh, 14.023 seconds off the win. Di Giannantonio, Zarco, Lecuona, Franco Morbidelli, Aldeguer and Maverick Viñales completed the top 13, and Dixon took the last point-scoring place in 14th, a first MotoGP points finish for him. Binder and Diogo Moreira retired with technical problems. Marini had withdrawn before the race, and a record crowd of 55,120 filled the stands across the weekend.
Qatar MotoGP 2026 Moto2 and Moto3
The Moto2 race at Qatar MotoGP 2026 went to Daniel Holgado by 2.2 seconds, his second win of the season, after taking the lead from pole-sitter Alex Escrig in the closing laps. Iván Ortola, who started 14th, beat Escrig to second in a photo finish. David Alonso was fourth and Daniel Muñoz fifth.
Moto2 championship leader Manuel Gonzalez finished sixth. His rival Izan Guevara had a bike problem on lap 14, his first retirement in 13 months. Gonzalez now leads by 13.5 points with two rounds to go, and Portugal is his first match point.
David Almansa led every lap in Moto3 for his fourth win of 2026, 2.5 seconds clear of Adrián Fernández. Fernández held off world champion Máximo Quiles by 0.069 seconds, which was enough for Quiles’s Aspar team to wrap up the Teams’ title. Brian Uriarte took Rookie of the Year with 14th after an early crash.
What the Qatar MotoGP 2026 Result Leaves for Portugal
After Qatar MotoGP 2026, Márquez has 431 points and Martin 371, with Bezzecchi on 357, Acosta on 309 and Ogura on 294. Two rounds remain, Portugal and Valencia, with 74 points available to each rider. Qatar MotoGP 2026 left Márquez able to clinch in Portugal, and a Sprint win there would be enough to do it.
The Sepang weekend gave Márquez the cushion, and Qatar protected it. Martin keeps racing on a fractured wrist, and Aprilia took the win and put Fernández on the podium too. The Sepang round made Márquez the favorite, and the cancelled race at Phillip Island left the title looking tighter than it was.
Aprilia has the Sunday win and Márquez has the points, and Portugal is where Bezzecchi has to show that Lusail was a start and not a one-off.
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