MOTO GP

Pecco Bagnaia puts Jorge Martín to sleep at Motegi and Marc Márquez clings to the podium

Italian Pecco Bagnaia has completed the double at the Japanese Grand Prix by dominating the race from start to finish to reach eight victories in 2024 and reduce the gap in the MotoGP classification with the Spaniard Jorge Martín, who has come back to finish second with the Spaniard Marc Márquez climbing to the podium after defending himself from the Italian Enea Bastianini in a race in which it has been difficult not to fall asleep due to the lack of overtaking.

Pecco Bagnaia overtook Pedro Acosta at the start in the presence of Brad Binder, behind whom Enea Bastianini was with Marc Márquez and Jorge Martín placing themselves behind him when passing Franco Morbidelli. Before the end of the first lap Binder slipped through and that allowed Bastianini to pass, but the South African replied and displaced Bastianini, who was overtaken by Martín and Márquez.

The Madrid native also overtook the eight-time champion, who was overtaken by Jack Miller while behind him Alex Marquez touched Joan Mir and fell, with his Ducati hooking up with the Balearic rider's Honda, who could not avoid falling to the ground. Shortly afterwards Lorenzo Savadori retired.

On the third lap Marquez threw his bike to Miller to place himself in fifth place to go after Martin, with all of them gaining a position when Pedro Acosta fell to the ground in the last corner of that same third lap. Moments later, Martin put his bike to Binder to take second place, although more than a second behind Bagnaia.

Marquez had much more pace than Binder and took him off the podium on the fourth lap, but he was unable to get close to Martin who was flying until he was less than a second behind Bagnaia. Meanwhile, Bastianini was starting to get into the swing of things and was sticking to Binder, with Miller fading away until he was caught and overtaken by Franco Morbidelli and Marco Bezzecchi.

It was the ninth lap when Bastianini tried it with Binder, but he went wide and the South African managed to regain the position. It didn't last long: on the following lap the Italian consolidated the overtake and moved into fourth; more or less at the same moment that the white flag appeared indicating that the riders could change bikes. On the edge of the top 10, Maverick Viñales crashed.

Bagnaia reacted to once again move more than a second ahead of Martín, with Márquez losing time tenth by tenth and seeing in his rearview mirrors how Bastianini was starting to close in, who was less than two seconds behind with twelve laps to go. A gap that shrank sharply when Marc made a mistake and lost almost a second. Two battles for pace were taking place, but they would only end up as just that: Pecco Bagnaia kept Jorge Martín at bay to take an uncontested victory; and Marc Márquez pulled out all the stops to prevent Enea Bastianini from getting on his wheel and end the weekend with another podium finish.

Behind, Franco Morbidelli managed to catch and beat Brad Binder to complete a Ducati top 5 with Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio behind. The top 10 was completed by Aleix Espargaró and Jack Miller, with Raúl Fernández in the points.

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