The 2026 MotoGP season started with a bang as future Ducati team-mates Marc Marquez and Pedro Acosta's Thai Grand Prix sprint clash prompted a penalty that handed Acosta his first win in the series.

Marquez was diplomatic but Ducati was clearly unimpressed with the stewards' ruling. Acosta had no complaints but implied he'd rather his first MotoGP win hadn't happened quite like that.

Here's our team's take on it.

At least it's consistent stewarding

Simon Patterson

I don't necessarily agree that Marquez should have been penalised, in the grand scheme of things; anyone who listens regularly to our podcast knows that I'm far more of the 'let them race' school of thought than others, and in an ideal world I'd rather see the stewards let moves like Marquez's stand, just like they would have 20 years ago.

But the biggest complaint we had about stewarding prior to the arrival of Simon Crafar as chief steward was a lack of consistency in what was penalised - and in this case, you simply cannot say that was the case, because he did exactly what he has told the riders he would do for well over a year now.

Under his stewarding, you can pass someone but you can't steal a position from them. Hard racing is fine, forcing other riders off the track to get through isn't.

And you can't deny that Marquez's move on Acosta sent the KTM rider so deep into the run-off that it almost cost him not just the lead but almost second place as well.

That'll always be a sanction under current leadership, and I'd rather have consistent penalties than anything else.

THE DIVEBOMBS OF ALL DIVEBOMBS :bomb:@marcmarquez93 sends @37_pedroacosta VERY wide :scream:#ThaiGP :flag-th: pic.twitter.com/ZeiNaHzPUI

An obvious penalty

Val Khorounzhiy

This was a penalty every day of the week in my book, and I applaud the stewards for taking the decision so swiftly and resolving the matter before the chequered flag. Usually such haste can backfire, but this looked open-and-shut to me and I appreciate the conviction it was adjudicated with.

That Marquez 'made' the corner - or at least stayed within the confines of the track - is to me relevant but secondary to the matter that he did not give the rider he was fighting a fair chance to also do so.

It's fair to debate how such a situation should be ruled on in the case of two riders side by side on corner entry - but this was no such case, with Marquez very, very far behind at the start of the braking phase.

I do not begrudge him having a go, but the execution was not clean enough. A legal race-winning overtake should not look like this and should be reversed by officials.

Acosta would do the same to Marquez

Jordan Moreland

Firstly, isn’t it great to see some proper bar-to-bar racing in MotoGP? The decision from the stewards I think is just about right. The story of that race between Marc and Pedro was building to a moment at that exact corner and I do think, if Acosta is in the same position as Marquez, he does the exact same move.

There is a fine line between letting them race and giving out penalties, but Marquez technically didn’t make contact with Acosta and it was a proper aggressive block pass. It's an overtake that Marquez has used down the years to great effect - most recently in a race-winning battle against Jorge Martin at Phillip Island in 2024, which he didn’t get penalised for.

But I think this overtake was just a tad more on the line. Given the nature of the corner and the position Acosta was in, he always going to have to go off the track and that has ultimately decided the ruling.

The good thing about it, on the surface anyway, is that Marc and Pedro shook hands and we hopefully get more of the same tomorrow and throughout the season!

An uncomfortable way to win (and lose)

Matt Beer

Val and I are at very opposite ends of the spectrum on this one. If Acosta had been denied a first MotoGP win by Marquez making that kind of move, I'd have found it harsh on Acosta but still within the realm of the vagaries of hard racing. For me, it's just within the line of forceful but fine, the kind of win some/lose some move that very hard racers will pull on each other and could come out either side of.

I wouldn't say the penalty is offensively over the top, far from it. I get the logic, absolutely. In some kind of instinctive 'let them race' way, though, I just don't really like it.

The good thing is that race was proof of how good Marquez vs Acosta is going to be both on and off track, and we're in for a lot of it over the years ahead.