Vancouver Courier - Bezzecchi overcomes seagull hit to win Australian MotoGP sprint race

France's Fabio Quartararo threw down the gauntlet in qualifying when he shattered Bezzecchi's Phillip Island lap record set a day earlier to bank his fifth pole of the season.

But the laser-focused Italian, starting from second, simply had too much power in his Aprilia to clinch his third sprint win in the last four races.

He did so despite colliding with a bird at the start, which left feathers hanging from his bike.

Gresini's Marquez stormed from sixth to first at the opening corner, but by the end of lap one it was fellow Aprilia rider Raul Fernandez closely followed by Bezzecchi with Quartararo down to sixth.

They opened a gap to Marquez before Fernandez seemingly took control when Bezzecchi went wide on lap seven, losing a second.

But Bezzecchi regrouped and came surging back, passing the Spaniard on lap 10 and cruising home ahead of him by 3.149secs.

"It was a pretty hard because at the beginning I hit a big bird, unfortunately for him, especially, but also for me, because I got scared," said Bezzecchi.

"But fortunately nothing was was broken on the bike. Then when we started the sprint, I had a lot of fun."

Pedro Acosta filled the podium in third, with Jack Miller fourth and Fabio Di Giannantonio fifth in chilly conditions. Quartararo came seventh.

"I was very relaxed on the bike. I saw Marco had really good pace," said Fernandez. "I tired my maximum, but when I saw that I couldn't follow Marco, I just tried to survive."

Bezzecchi's exploits came in the absence of newly-crowned world champion Marc Marquez, who needed shoulder surgery after the Italian slammed into him in Indonesia a fortnight ago.

Bezzecchi must serve a double long lap penalty -- essentially five-to-six seconds -- on Sunday for causing the incident, making his chances winning that race much harder.

Alex Marquez, Marc's younger brother, stretched his lead over two-time world champion Francesco Bagnaia in the battle to clinch second in the standings to 92 points.

He needs to be 111 points clear at the end of the weekend to seal the deal.

Bagnaia had another shocking race on the back of a poor outing in Indonesia, starting 11th but slumping to 19th, a massive 32 seconds off the pace.

Spanish rookie Fermin Aldeguer, who won the MotoGP in Indonesia, failed to finish.

With high winds expected this weekend, organisers have pushed back the grand prix by an hour on Sunday to 3:00 pm (0400 GMT) in a bid to avoid the worst of the weather.

L.Bennett--VC