The Sachsenring risks becoming the turning point of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship: just when Jorge Martin seemed to be one step away from a victory that would have allowed him to extend his lead in the standings, he made a sensational mistake, falling two laps from the end and handing Pecco Bagnaia his fourth consecutive victory on a silver platter.
A significant success for the reigning world champion, the sixth of the season in just nine races, which gives him the world championship lead with a 10-point margin over his rival from Prima Pramac Racing. All this on the same Sunday in which he also became the most successful rider in Ducati’s history in MotoGP, reaching 24 triumphs, one more than Casey Stoner. In short, Pecco gave himself a nice wedding present, given that in two weeks he will get married to his girlfriend Domizia, taking advantage of the summer break.
A Red party embellished by a five-pointer right on the German ups and downs, a track that until a few years ago was like Kryptonite for the Desmosedici GP. But even in the Gresini Racing box they can be particularly satisfied, with the two Marquez brothers who completed the podium behind Pecco thanks to yet another comeback by Marc, who climbed from 13th on the grid to the final second, overtaking his brother Alex on the penultimate lap.
At the start, Martin immediately took the lead from pole position, followed by the Aprilia of Miguel Oliveira and Bagnaia. The intention of the Piedmontese, however, was to try to get ahead as soon as possible and in fact in the first two laps he passed both riders ahead of him with decisive attacks at turn 13.
Once in the lead, Bagnaia was unable to set a pace that would separate the group, and Martin took advantage of this to get back in front on the seventh lap with a nice deep braking move at Turn 1. At this point, the Italian had a bit of difficulty for a few laps, probably due to an increase in front tyre pressure, and Franco Morbidelli took advantage of this to slip in as well and form a Pramac one-two at the front.
As the laps went by, Morbido became dangerous even behind Martin, but just when he reached the tail of the twin GP24 he also suffered a drop in pace, which allowed Bagnaia to come back. In the space of a couple of laps, Pecco took back the second place, but in the meantime Martin built up a margin of about a second, which seemed decisive for the outcome of the race.
Bagnaia, however, deserves credit for never stopping believing, to the point of reducing the gap to just under half a second with three laps to go. And that’s where the Madrid native made a huge mistake, ending up with his wheels in the air and going wide at the braking point of turn 1, paving the way for Pecco to take a very important win.
As mentioned, behind the new leader of the World Championship the two GP23s of Gresini Racing rose, with Marc Marquez who was stronger than the pain of the fractured ribcage and finger injured on Friday. The eight-time world champion made constant progress and was also the protagonist of a very heated battle with Morbidelli a few laps from the end, even with contact coming out of turn 1.
Once he passed “Morbido”, he had a gap of over a second on his brother Alex, but this did not stop him from catching up and overtaking him. No big deal for the latter, who nevertheless took his first podium of the season and the first in cohabitation with his brother. After a great race, Morbidelli instead had to settle for fifth place in the end, also giving up fourth to the other Ducati of Enea Bastianini.
The first of the “others” was Miguel Oliveira, who with the Aprilia of Trackhouse Racing was the last to surrender to the overwhelming power of the Ducatis, concluding a weekend that for him was particularly positive, even if in the end his gap was over 10 seconds. In seventh position then is the first of the KTMs, that of Pedro Acosta, who therefore this weekend lost the opportunity to become the youngest rider to have won a race in MotoGP, with the RC16 of Brad Binder and the RS-GP of Raul Fernandez completing the top 10.
Fabio Quartararo did not go beyond 11th place with a Yamaha in great difficulty on the track where two years ago he had achieved his last victory, preceding a Maverick Vinales who ruined his race with a straight into the gravel of turn 8 in the first half. The best of the Hondas was that of Takaaki Nakagami, who by just 37 thousandths deprived Luca Marini of his first point of the season. Unlucky Fabio Di Giannantonio, forced to retire after less than ten laps due to a puncture.
It should be noted that Stefan Bradl, Augusto Fernandez and Johann Zarco have been investigated for having tyre pressures lower than the minimum values imposed by Michelin.
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