The rain expected on Buriram for the afternoon favored the MotoGP riders, who gave life to a session that was a real pre-qualifying, with the beauty of 18 bikes enclosed in the space of just over half a second when it was time to outline the picture of the ten who will have direct access to Q2 of the Thai Grand Prix.
Jorge Martin confirmed the entire repertoire of the last two weeks. The Prima Pramac Racing rider was in fact the fastest of the day with a time of 1’29″826, but at the end he also made a mistake: he overbraked at turn 3, losing the front and ending up with his wheels on the opposite side. A slip from which he got up unharmed and which gave rise to a yellow flag which crystallized the standings about a minute and a half from the end.
Chasing the Madrilenian are the two official Aprilias, which surprisingly are shining on a track that was not considered particularly favorable to the RS-GP. Indeed, Maverick Vinales seemed rather lively all day and in the end he closed just 98 thousandths from the top. Aleix Espargaro, however, was not far behind, because he is third, 62 thousandths further back.
If they struggled a bit in FP1, in the afternoon the Ducatis came back to the fore, because in the positions between fourth and seventh there are only Desmosedici GPs. Captaining this little train is the fresh winner of the Australian GP, the Frenchman Johann Zarco, who preceded the tandem of the Mooney VR46 with Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi in that order.
World championship leader Pecco Bagnaia is only seventh, even though his gap compared to his rival in the title race is only 243 thousandths. This time too the Piedmontese struggled a bit in search of fine-tuning, but after two consecutive passes from Q1, this time he immediately secured his access to the decisive segment of qualifying, so it is a significant step forward.
In eighth position we find Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha, which in fact in those situations in which the stiffer carcass is used for the rear manages to exploit the potential of the M1 more, while completing the picture of the top ten positions there are two KTMs : one is the official one by Brad Binder, the other the GasGas Tech3 one entrusted to Augusto Fernandez, who completes a top 10 all contained in just 304 thousandths.
This time it wasn’t enough for Marc Marquez to catch Martin’s hook to reach Q2, because the Honda rider is the first of those excluded, even if by just 65 thousandths. Among other things, in the first phase of the round, the eight-time world champion was also hit in the shoulder by a piece lost from Martin’s Ducati. For a while he suffered pain, but then he seems to have overcome it without too many problems.
It’s also a shame for Franco Morbidelli, 12th, who ultimately missed out on Q2 by less than a tenth with his Yamaha. After the beautiful podium at Phillip Island, Fabio Di Giannantonio also came back down to earth, 14th behind Jack Miller’s KTM with the Gresini Racing Ducati. For now, however, Enea Bastianini is in great difficulty, finding himself 19th and opening the trio of the only riders more than a second behind. The incredible thing is that his gap from Alex Marquez who precedes him is greater than the gap that the Gresini Racing Spaniard has from Martin’s best time.
#MotoGP #Buriram #Tests #Martin #falls #stands #tall #Bagnaia #hits