The Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) won the Japanese Grand Prix, reducing the gap to ten points on the leader in the world championship, the Spaniard Jorge Martin (Ducati-Pramac) who finished 2nd on Sunday.
Bagnaia totally dominated the race after taking the lead just after the start, given on a slightly wet track. The young Spanish prodigy Pedro Acosta (GasGas-Tech3), who started in pole position, quickly fell just like the day before during the sprint race.
It’s another Spaniard, the six-time world champion Marc Marquez (Ducati-Gresini), who climbs to the 3rd step of the podium and remains 4th in the championship but far from the fight between the first two.
Starting 11th on the grid, Martin made a fantastic comeback, finishing a second behind Bagnaia and maintains a 10-point championship advantage over the Italian with four races remaining.
“We managed to gain 11 points this weekend,” underlined the winner after the finish, keeping his eyes fixed on a third title after those won the two previous years. He had already won the sprint race the day before, with Martin finishing 4th. The Spaniard now has 392 points in the championship compared to 382 for the Italian who now has 8 GP victories this year compared to only 3 for Martin who has however been more consistent.
Martin admitted that Bagnaia was untouchable on Sunday. “I never had a chance to catch him,” he said, being satisfied with his 2nd place.
Acosta, who on Saturday obtained the first pole position of his young career in MotoGP where he is starting this year, did not keep his property for very long by immediately being passed by “Pecco” Bagnaia.
Then, like the day before during the sprint, Acosta crashed while accelerating too hard coming out of a corner. Although he managed to get his motorbike lying in the gravel trap back up, he left in last position before later giving up, disappointed.
– Martin’s crazy climb –
This benefited Jorge Martin, who started only 11th on the grid but made a great start. Unchained, he set off after Bagnaia, managing to come back to around a second behind his rival.
The weather remained threatening and the white flags signaling the onset of rain were briefly displayed, giving riders the opportunity to return to the pits to exchange their bike for one equipped with rain tires.
But none made this choice. Wisely because the sun quickly reappeared, Bagnaia maintaining a gap of around a second on Martin, himself followed by Marquez more than 3 seconds behind, an order which was not to change until the ‘arrival.
The French Johann Zarco (Honda-LCR) and Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) finished 11th and 12th respectively. Quartararo ran out of fuel at the exit of the last corner, being overtaken by Zarco and did not hide his dissatisfaction after the finish. But, apart from this incident, the Japanese machines, whether Honda or Yamaha, still showed themselves to be largely inferior to the European machines, with Ducati – which already has the manufacturers’ world title in its pocket this year – in the lead.
In the intermediate categories, Colombian David Alonso was crowned Moto3 world champion while Japanese Ai Ogura finished 2nd in the Moto2 race and now has a 60-point lead in the championship.
The next event is the Australian Grand Prix in two weeks.
volume/ole
