This Qatar GP showed a bit of what MotoGP is and what can happen in the fight for the title, with Francesco Bagnaia having the best luck over Jorge Martín. The Italian led for most of the race but ended up in second place behind Fabio Di Giannantonio, while Jorge Martín had an absolutely disastrous race, finishing in tenth.
Seven points separate Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín in the standings and with three rounds to go in the championship, all scenarios are open, especially after #89 cut in half the gap to the lead by winning the Sprint, while #1 finished fifth.
And the suspense is at its peak for this Sunday’s race, especially after Martín forced the overtake on Bagnaia, with the Italian showing displeasure at how it happened. In fact, the Ducati Lenovo rider has already “warned” that he is ready to fight with the opponent regarding what happened: It’s very good that he came to me to start, now I know that this can be done and I like this situation. I think it’s great that it was him who did it, so he’s opening up a situation that could be interesting for tomorrow.
Even before the start of Sunday’s race, a note on the statistics: Bagnaia won two more races on Sundays, while Martín, in turn, has twice as many victories in Sprint races.
And there are plenty of ingredients to spice up this battle in Losail, with Bagnaia starting from fourth on the grid, and Martín next to the Italian in fifth.
And everything was ready for the start of the race, with over 55 thousand spectators on site to witness the battle live:
The start of the race could hardly have gone better for Bagnaia, who immediately took the lead in the race, unlike Martín who was eighth and, at the end of the first lap, was already 1.471s behind the front of the race.
With two laps completed, Martín was closer to the 2s disadvantage mark to the leader, who was leading the race and even setting the fastest lap with 1:53.468s. Johann Zarco, Martín’s teammate, went wide and this allowed the Spaniard to move up to seventh place, but his disadvantage was, with three laps completed, 2.363s to the top of the race. Marc Márquez was sixth and had a 0.443s difference to Martín. Márquez was the next “victim” of Martín, who thus moved up to sixth place. Brad Binder promised to be a tougher challenge, at 1.4s. It didn’t take long for Luca Marini to be the next opponent, as Binder took advantage to move up to fourth place, relegating Marini to be pursued by Martín. With five laps completed, Bagnaia led the race with 0.644s over Fabio Di Giannatonio and 3.062s over Martín. Márquez in seventh was giving Martín a hard time and 0.315s separated the former world champion from the Pramac rider, who was gradually getting further away from the leader: 3.303s separated Martín from Bagnaia, who had about four tenths of a second advantage over DiGia.At the beginning of the ninth lap, Bagnaia had DiGia at 0.191s but the world champion showed determination and did not allow #49 to get too close, while Martín had a new pursuer: Maverick Viñales, who was aiming for #89. 0.149s separated the Aprilia rider from sixth place.
Viñales threatened to overtake Martín at any moment, who was now 5.100s behind the leader.
In the first sector of the 11th lap, DiGia saw the lead at 0.079s but Bagnaia remained solid and, shortly after, Martín dropped two positions and fell to eighth. A disastrous race for the Spaniard who now had Fabio Quartararo on his tail at 0.186s.
At this point, Martín was the slowest rider on track, the only one riding within the 55-second mark, but still managed to beat Márquez. However, he was soon overtaken by Quartararo and was now in eighth place. Jack Miller was in ninth at 0.104s and… it didn’t take long for him to lose a position, dropping to ninth, with Zarco able to act as a “guard” for his teammate.
Meanwhile, Bagnaia was doing well and holding off Di Giannantonio, with the Gresini rider trailing by 0.234s.
With nine laps to go in the race, this is how the two opponents stood:
Bagnaia maintained the lead with his gap to DiGia varying between 1 and 2 tenths. Martín had Miller at 1.4s and saw the dream of the world championship very far away: if the race ended now, there would be 25 points separating Bagnaia from Martín!
DiGia was trying his best but Bagnaia was on another level and didn’t give the opponent a chance, at a time when problems for Martín promised to get worse: Enea Bastianini passed Zarco and shortly after wasted no time in also passing Martín, who was in tenth place with five laps to go.
On the next lap, DiGia confirmed the pass on Bagnaia and then successfully defended the opponent’s attack from the factory Ducati. In the space of two sectors, #49 increased the gap to around 2.5s, with #1 going wide in the run-off area and, if it weren’t for the large advantage over Marini, the scenario could have been much worse.
The difference in the standings was now 21 points, virtually, as Martín remained in tenth position.
There were no more significant changes until the end, and Martín finished a disastrous race in 10th, with Fabio Di Giannantonio keeping his title aspirations alive, despite the huge gap now separating the top two.
