If we only raced on Saturday, Jorge Martin would probably have no rivals in the race for the MotoGP title: the Prima Pramac Racing rider seems truly unbeatable in the Sprints and showed another example in Le Mans, where he achieved his third success of the season in a short race. And if you extend the count to 2023 it is even 50%, because he has won 12 of the 24 played so far.
Once again, the Madrid native had virtually no opponents. He started very well from pole position and then led from start to finish, with only Marco Bezzecchi trying for a few laps to stay in the tail of his Desmosedici GP, at least until he ruined everything by slipping four laps from the term, when in reality he was trying to compete for the return of a sumptuous Marc Marquez.
The eight-time world champion, in fact, was capable of a sensational comeback from 13th place on the grid. Thanks to a spectacular start, the Gresini Racing representative moved to fourth position in the space of just a few corners, then climbed to the podium area when Aleix Espargaro in front of him was forced to serve a double long lap penalty for an early start.
At that point he tried to threaten the place of honor of Bezzecchi, who in turn had had a feline leap from the second row, but evidently he felt the pressure and was led into the error, serving on the silver platter second place at #93, who once again made it clear that his first victory aboard the Ducati is only a matter of time.
As you may have noticed, we haven’t mentioned Pecco Bagnaia yet, but the world champion’s race was really short. His start was really bad, with his Ducati doing wheelies twice, even dropping him from the front row to 14th place. A couple of laps later he went very long at turn 6 and sadly returned to the pits, complaining that his second bike wasn’t behaving like the first: after having rebuilt it following the qualifying accident, the team didn’t know she felt comfortable using it in the race without having checked it on the track before. A heavy zero for the Piedmontese, who therefore returns to -29 behind Martin.
Maverick Vinales then climbed onto the lowest step of the podium, who perhaps was less brilliant than on other occasions, unable to keep up with the best with his Aprilia, but in the end he took home some good points from a championship perspective, resisting in the finale the other Ducati of Enea Bastianini returned, who with fourth place took second place in the World Championship, albeit 28 points behind Martin.
After the double long lap penalty, Espargaro managed to maintain a good pace until the end, so much so that he finished fifth with his Aprilia, ahead of Pedro Acosta who was once again the best among the KTM riders and he is now fourth in the World Championship at -31. However, Fabio Di Giannantonio lost out at the distance and had to settle for seventh place with the Pertamina Enduro VR46 GP23, ahead of Jack Miller’s KTM.
The points zone is completed with the Aprilia designed by Trackhouse Racing entrusted to Raul Fernandez, who managed to outwit local idol Fabio Quartararo, who was left out of the points zone by just four tenths with his Yamaha. As for the other Italians, Franco Morbidelli finished 12th with his Ducati, while Luca Marini’s Honda crossed the finish line in 18th.
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