Ducati's world champ Francesco Bagnaia
won the sprint race of the Japanese MotoGP Saturday cutting
Spaniard Jorge Martin's standings lead to 15 points ahead of
Sunday's MotoGP.
The official Ducati of the 2022 and 2023 champ preceded that of
his teammate Enea Bastianini. Third was Spain's Marc Marquez, on
the Ducati of Team Gresini.
In fourth place was the leader of the MotoGP world championship
Martin, followed by Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio.
In the riders' standings Martina has 372 points.
Bagnaia has reduced the gap to 15 points, while Bastianini is at
-72 and Marc Marquez at -77.
Pedro Acosta (KTM), who started from pole for the first time in
the premier class, and was in the lead for several laps after
recovering from being overtaken by Bagnaia at the start, fell
with four laps to go.
Bagnaia spoke of a "complicated race" telling Sky Tv "I had to
sacrifice a bit of performance, but I got off to a good start".
Then, after being overtaken by Acosta, "Pedro was doing an
incredible pace," but this was stopped by the Spaniard's crash
a few laps from the end.
"Today it wasn't the case of taking excessive risks, towards the
end it started to rain again," added Bagnaia.
The world champion won his sixth Sprint out of the last 10 in
Japan
"It's a type of race that's not particularly my style, but I
worked hard to be able to push hard right from the start and by
working you always improve."
Results and standings after sprint race:
1) Francesco Bagnaia (Ita/Ducati) in 21'01"074
2) Enea Bastianini (Ita/Ducati) + 0.181
3) Marc Marquez (Spa/Ducati-Gresini) + 0.349
4) Jorge Martín (Spa/Ducati-Pramac) + 2"498
5) Franco Morbidelli (ITA/Ducati-Pramac) + 4"326
6) Fabio Di Giannantonio (ITA/Ducati-VR46) + 4"446
7) Alex Marquez (Spa/Ducati-Gresini) + 11"444
8) Jack Miller (Aus/KTM) + 11"875
9) Maverick Vinales (Spa/Aprilia) + 11"947
10) Marco Bezzecchi (It/Ducati-VR46) + 12"299
11) Raul Fernandez (Spa/Aprilia-Trackhouse)+ 14"559
12) Fabio Quartararo (Fra/Yamaha) + 14"645
13) Luca Marini (Ita/Honda) + 15"886
14) Johann Zarco (Fra/Honda-LCR) + 16"170
15) Augusto Fernandez (Spa/GasGaS-Tech3) + 20"522
16) Alex Rins (Spa/Yamaha) + 24"415
17) L. Savadori (Ita/Aprilia-Trackhouse) + 25"482
18) Remy Gardner (Aus/Yamaha) + 32"620
Riders' world championship standings:
1) Jorge Martin (Spa/Ducati-Pramac) 372 points
2) Francesco Bagnaia (Ita/Ducati) 357
3) Enea Bastianini (ITA/Ducati) 300
4) Marc Marquez (Spa/Ducati-Gresini) 295
5) Pedro Acosta (SpaP/GasGaS-Tech3) 181
6) Brad Binder (Rsa/KTM) 173
7) Maverick Vinales (Spa/Aprilia) 163
8) Aleix Espargaro (Spa/Aprilia) 127
9) Fabio Di Giannantonio (ITA/VR46) 126
10) Marco Bezzecchi (ITA/VR46) 125
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