Marco Bezzecchi has been declared fit to race in the Australian Grand Prix, but also issued with a long lap penalty following his high-speed MotoGP crash with Maverick Vinales in Saturday’s sprint.

The VR46 Ducati rider was taken to hospital for additional checks following the late-race incident at Doohan, for which Vinales laid the blame squarely at the Italian’s door.

The 25-year-old was declared fit to continue with his weekend on Sunday morning, but will have to serve a long lap penalty for his part in the crash.

Bezzecchi will start the race in fourth position on the grid. He made a strong getaway on Saturday and was running second early on, before dropping back on the medium rear tyre.

He had just lost fifth place to Vinales when the accident happened. Bezzecchi misjudged the slipstream effect after being overtaken and slammed into the back of the Aprilia.

Bezzecchi lay motionless in the gravel for a short while but was conscious when taken away on a stretcher.

Vinales did not suffer any major injury in the crash, despite not being able to feel his hand in the initial aftermath.

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

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Another rider set to serve a long lap penalty on Sunday is Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez. This follows the Spaniard taking out countryman Joan Mir (Honda) at the Japanese Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda) has also incurred the wrath of the stewards in Australia. He will start the race last after earning a three-place grid penalty for failing to respond to a black flag with orange disc during FP2.

Riders are expected to leave the track immediately when this flag is shown, but Nakagami continued to circulate.

Meanwhile, Tech3 GasGas rider will not take part in Sunday’s race after being declared unfit due to a shoulder injury he picked up in the sprint. He was due to line up 15th on the grid.

Pedro Acosta will miss Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix thanks to left shoulder trauma resulting from his crash in Saturday’s MotoGP sprint race.

The Tech3 KTM rookie dislocated his shoulder when he fell on lap 11 of 13 at Phillip Island. Although nothing was broken, the 20-year-old was declared unfit following further medical checks on Sunday morning.

Despite some flashes of pace for the rider who took pole position last time out in Japan, a poorly-timed qualifying run meant he only qualified 15th, his worst starting position of the year.

The Spaniard had only progressed as high as 11th place when his bike spat him into the air. In the violent impact with the ground, his shoulder popped out of place, although it was later repositioned.

After an initial medical examination he was released from the medical centre, with the plan to check how he spent the night and re-evaluate his condition before Sunday’s warm-up.

Despite getting up with the intention of trying to participate in the warm-up before the main race, the pain was intense and led the doctors to declare him unfit.

Pedro Acosta, Red Bull GASGAS Tech3

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

This will be the first time Acosta has missed a race in the top category. However, it does not seem that the injury will prevent him from competing in the next two rounds of the calendar, next week in Thailand and a week later in Malaysia.

Until then, the Spaniard will receive conservative, minimally invasive treatment, based on giving the joint time to heal so that he can get on the bike next Friday at Buriram.

“I’ve crashed many times in my career, but this is the first time in my life that the bike spat me into the air when entering the corner,” said Acosta, who has accumulated 24 crashes this season.

He leads that particular metric ahead of even Marc Marquez, who has 22 accidents, but none so far this weekend.

Acosta was unable to finish either the short or the long race in Japan two weeks ago. On Saturday he crashed from the lead of the sprint when he seemed on the verge of his breakthrough win.

He then fell in the Japanese Grand Prix on the following day, while disputing the lead with Francesco Bagnaia.

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Christopher Bell earned his third pole of the 2024 season on Saturday with a 185.344mph (29.135s) lap. Driving the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, he bested 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick by just 0.013s in the final round of qualifying.

“I feel really good,” Bell told NBC. “I feel really comfortable. In practice, I don’t think the pace showed what we had but inside the car, I felt super comfortable. I know we are gonna have a shot at it tomorrow.”

While it’s a great way to start the Round of 8, Bell has also never won a Cup race from pole position before.

“I’ve been in this position many times and obviously, I’ve never won from the pole yet,” said Bell, who just earned his 13th career pole position. “Still waiting to do that, but maybe tomorrow’s the day.”

Reddick will line up alongside with the recently eliminated Alex Bowman in third. Denny Hamlin was fourth and Kyle Larson fifth. Filling out the remainder of the top-ten on the grid: Carson Hocevar, Ross Chastain, Ty Gibbs, William Byron, and Joey Logano.

The only two playoff drivers to not advance into the pole round were Chase Elliott in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and Ryan Blaney, who did not make an attempt after a practice crash. Blaney will start 37th (last) in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford.

Round 1 

Thankfully, there were no incidents like Blaney’s in a very clean qualifying session. In the first round, Bell set the pace with a 29.153s lap in Group A. He advanced along with Hamlin, Logano, Gibbs, and Hocevar. Martin Truex Jr. was the first driver to miss out, just 0.009s back of Hocevar.

In Group B, Reddick was quickest at a blistering fast 29.007s lap. He advanced along with Byron, Chastain, Bowman, and Larson. Austin Cindric was the first driver out, 0.077s out.

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Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying struggles in Formula 1 continued at the United States Grand Prix after he was dramatically knocked out in Q1.

The Mercedes driver had left it late in the first qualifying segment to try to get through to Q2, but it all went wrong as he failed to produce the lap time needed.

While he was slightly up on the cutoff point in the first sector, it all went wrong under braking for Turn 12 at the end of the back straight.

He appeared to run deep and, as he struggled to get the car turned in, he suffered some snap oversteer on the exit.

His second sector time ended up being half a second adrift of what team-mate George Russell did – and left him in the drop zone.

As a number of other drivers improved in the closing stages of Q1, Hamilton ended up 19th overall at the end – less than one tenth of a second ahead of Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu.

Hamilton’s Q1 exit was his first since the Chinese Grand Prix when he ended up 18th on the grid, and is his worst qualifying result of the 2024 campaign.

More to follow