To be a champion, you also have to be able to bite your rival in his most difficult moments. And that’s what Jorge Martin did today in Misano, taking home a MotoGP Sprint with a truly significant specific weight for the way he managed to get the better of his rival Pecco Bagnaia.
Despite not being 100% physically after the Aragon crash, Bagnaia managed to take a sensational pole position this morning. But not even a good start was enough for him to be ahead of everyone at the first braking point. That of “Martinator”, in fact, was nothing short of dazzling, because from the second row he was able to take the lead in the space of a few hundred meters.
A key step for his fourth win of the season in a short race on Saturday. Riders have been repeating over and over how important it is to be able to ride in clean air, because chasing increases the temperature of the front tire and with it the pressure. Even more so when conditions are like today’s at the circuit named after Marco Simoncelli, where the asphalt temperature was over 40 degrees.
Once they found themselves first and second, Martin and Bagnaia tried to set the race at a hellish pace, at a pace of low 1’31”. For about two thirds, Bagnaia remained glued to the GP24 of Prima Pramac Racing, with a gap of less than three tenths. In the final stages, however, he understood that there would be nothing he could do to find the overtaking on a Martin capable of really deep braking, so he threw in the towel, settling for a second place that however puts him further away from his rival, now ahead by 26 points.
The good news this Saturday is that, after finding a front row that he had been missing since the 2021 Spanish GP, Franco Morbidelli has returned to a MotoGP podium, even if for now it is only a Sprint. The curious thing is that the last one dates back to the same weekend three years ago.
For a few laps the Italian driver tried to keep up with the infernal pace of the first two, then he gradually dropped away and in the final he had to defend himself from the return of Enea Bastianini, once again author of a great comeback from the third row. “Bestia” also tried to slip inside turn 8 on the last lap, but he went long and so Franky kept his third position.
Ducati hosted the race with a five-lap finish, completed by Marc Marquez, who in turn climbed from the third row, with a comeback that ended with a nice overtaking at Carro on the last lap against Pedro Acosta, who everyone sees as his possible heir. Without the crash in Q2, perhaps it could have been a completely different race for the eight-time world champion, because his pace was interesting, but with ifs and buts you don’t get anywhere.
Yesterday Acosta had spoken of a KTM closer than ever to the Ducatis this season, but the reality of the Sprint was different, because the GasGas Tech3 rookie finished sixth, cashing in a gap of almost seven seconds in just 13 laps and preceding the other two RC16s of Brad Binder and Jack Miller.
The last point went to Fabio Quartararo, who at least managed to experience a race entirely in the top 10 this time with his Yamaha, defending himself tooth and nail from Alex Marquez in the finale. It was a decidedly bad day for the Aprilias, who all remained outside the points zone, with the two official RS-GPs of Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro finishing in 11th and 12th place.
The best of the Hondas took 14th place with the “usual” Johann Zarco, while Luca Marini had to settle for 18th place. Big disappointment for Marco Bezzecchi, who was unable to repeat the front row he achieved this morning: the Pertamina Enduro VR46 rider got off to a bad start and was in eighth position when he slipped at turn 2, even starting a fire on his Ducati GP23. The race was over almost immediately also for his teammate Fabio Di Giannatonio, who fell at Carro.
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