-Bagnaia finishes second
-Morbidelli crosses the line in third
-Marquez finishes fifth
Prima Pramac Racing’s Jorge Martin dominated the San Marino GP Sprint, denying local hero Pecco Bagnaia the win despite the latter’s strong start to the race weekend. Martin’s pace was on another level and quite unexpected.
Martin’s Magic
Pecco Bagnaia started the race on Pole and made a good start as the lights went out. It looked like he was clear of the field for a few seconds before going into Turn One. However, no one expected Jorge Martin to rocket off the line from P4 and manage to catch and pass Pecco on the inside as the pair dived into Turn One. Bagania tried to pass Martin through the next set of corners, but the Spaniard denied him the chance to do so.
As the race progressed, Martin and Bagnaia began to pull away from the rest of the riders. The gap between the two Championship contenders hovered around 1 to 1.5-second mark. Bagania was trying to close the gap in the latter half of the race and even reduced it to half a second.
Martin, however, was untouchable as he displayed a strong pace and crossed the finish line 1.4 seconds clear of Baganaia.
Marquez fights hard through the field
Marc Marquez was at it again this weekend, pulling off some mega overtakes as he finished in P5. The Spaniard was engaged in a tough battle with the KTM of Brad Binder followed by the GasGas Tech 3 Racing’s Pedro Acosta. The move on the inside of Pedro Acosta, while braking from 280kmph was indeed mind-blowing. Sadly, he did not have the pace to catch Enea Bastianini in P4 and Franco Morbidelli who finished in third position.
Pecco and patience
Baganaia has had too many crashes this season to try and push hard and lose valuable points. The Italian rider crashed out of the Aragon GP last week as well, so he was mindful of not doing the same in yesterday’s Sprint. Baganaia gathered valuable championship points after crossing the line in P2. He is hoping to cut the over 20-point lead that Jorge Martin has in the 2024 MotoGP World Championship, going into today’s Main Race that will begin at 5:30 pm IST.
