Jorge Martin still believes it. He could only win in the Valencia Sprint and he did it with great determination, even achieving his ninth success of the season in a short race on Saturday. A very heavy result, which allowed him to reduce the gap to Pecco Bagnaia, only fifth, to 14 points, postponing the awarding of the 2023 MotoGP title until tomorrow.
The Prima Pramac Racing rider did very well to immediately turn the page and stop thinking about a troubled qualifying that had relegated him to sixth place, starting with just one goal: victory. When the traffic lights went out he was very good, because he immediately managed to move into third position, behind the Aprilia of poleman Maverick Vinales and his title rival, who were the only ones in the top positions to have mounted the medium tire on the rear ( the others had the soft).
On the first lap there was also a crossing of paths between the two rivals at turn 10 and behind them Brad Binder and Marc Marquez also took advantage of it to get in. However, it didn’t take long to understand that Pecco’s choice was probably not the best one, because little by little the gap towards the lead poker opened up.
And towards the middle of the race Vinales also suffered a rather sudden drop, slipping from first to fourth place in the space of just a couple of steps. And it is in this phase that Martin made his move, also taking advantage of a small mistake by Binder, who went wide with his KTM at turn 10, to put him on the inside with his Ducati.
From that moment, the Madrilenian took the lead and there was no longer any doubt about the name of the winner, because Binder tried to keep his KTM close to the Ducati rider’s tail, but was never in enough contact to attempt an attack. or at least an attack that would not put one of the title candidates at risk.
Behind them, completing the podium is an excellent Marc Marquez, who remained hooked to the train for almost the entire race, managing in the end to give himself great joy in his last weekend on the Honda, in addition to the top 3 of the season in a Sprint. Among other things, towards the middle of the race there was also a shiver when he touched Martin’s shoulder, but fortunately it was only a big scare for both of them.
Once again, however, Vinales and Aprilia were unable to realize what seemed like a great opportunity and in the end they had to settle for fourth place. At the end Bagnaia also tried to get back under him, although not enough to attempt an attack on the Spanish rider.
Inevitably, for the World Championship leader there will be regret for having made a conservative tire choice, even if fifth place was the minimum result he needed to stay on schedule. Based on today’s results, in fact, he will need to repeat fifth place in the long race too to be sure of being champion regardless of Martin’s result.
Behind the Piedmontese there are only Ducatis to complete the points zone, with Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi who gave the sensation of wanting to “escort” Bagnaia to the finish line without depriving him of other precious points. In eighth position is Alex Marquez, followed by the Frenchman Johann Zarco.
Aleix Espargaro is therefore out of the points, 13th and struggling with the fractured fibula head suffered in Qatar, which could also put his participation in tomorrow’s long race in doubt. Luca Marini, Franco Morbidelli and Enea Bastianini also did poorly, all protagonists of a particularly anonymous race which ended in 14th, 15th and 17th position.
Also at the finish line is Lorenzo Savadori, 20th with the Aprilia RNF, while the only one not to see the checkered flag was Fabio Quartararo: the Yamaha rider fell at turn 6 during the fifth lap, in attempt to overtake Bagnaia.
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