(PRIMASPORT) MOTEGI – The chase continues, and it feels increasingly near completion. Marc Márquez confirms his performance at Motegi, winning the Japanese Grand Prix, beating his closest rival for the title, Jorge Martin. The Spaniard attempts to battle with his compatriot's Ducati, but after an otherwise high-level performance, he finds himself overtaken on the track and further closed in the standings by the formidable Catalan Ducati rider. The two are now separated by just two points, but it's the #93 Desmosedici that has the wind in its sails, with the championship overtaking now within striking distance. Marco Bezzecchi completes the podium, his Aprilia holding off the two leaders only in the first third of the race. Indeed, he must fend off a resurgent Enea Bastianini in the finale, who rewrites the history of the Japanese circuit with one record lap after another, but must settle for fourth place on his KTM.
Compared to Saturday, Motegi has changed in several ways. The first is the weather: heavy clouds threaten rain in the two hours leading up to the race, but this spares the riders this additional difficulty when it comes time to race. Another major change comes from race direction, which bans the use of the soft rear tyre after the serious wear issues reported by Martin and Bagnaia in the final part of the Sprint Race. The start is also completely different, much cleaner after the pileup triggered yesterday by Alex Marquez. And finally, Martin's attack, this time undetected by Marc Marquez, maintains his lead. This is an important position, which would have secured him a 12-point lead in the standings, but it doesn't last long.
After an initial phase in which Martin sets a blistering pace at the Japanese Grand Prix, with Bezzecchi in third and even looking capable of grabbing second place, Marc Marquez breaks the deadlock on lap six, closing in on the race leader. The Aprilia seems untouchable on the race course and under hard braking, so the overtaking move must inevitably come with a show of class from the reigning world champion: a bold and effective attack on a slower turn like Turn 9. It's the move of the day, arriving on lap eleven and potentially weighing heavily on the title race: Martin tries in vain to replicate it on the following lap, but Marquez closes all doors and then runs away, once again taking a commanding victory. And now the championship lead is just 2 points away.
Marco Bezzecchi, meanwhile, is 49 points behind. After attempting to challenge the top two, he must fend off the man chasing him: Bastianini, who, after the disappointment of missing out on the podium in the Sprint Race due to exceeding track limits on the final lap, is looking to bounce back on Sunday. Sixth on the first lap, the Team Tech3 rider overtakes Acosta on the next lap, but more importantly, he rediscovers his usual verve in the closing stages of the race. His final four laps under the finish line earned him four Motegi lap records, with a phenomenal 1:43.041 that thus enters the MotoGP calendar. In the end, the podium slips away by just 78 thousandths of a second, but the MotoGP World Championship has once again found a key player. Missing for a day were Alex Marquez, with his second crash in a single weekend, Pecco Bagnaia, who finished in an unsatisfactory eighth place while his teammate dominated, and especially Fabio Di Giannantonio. Still reeling from his Sprint Race blow, the Roman finished eighteenth, out of the points. And to think that in the spring, he seemed the most inspired rider of the entire Ducati field: different times. (PRIMASPORT)
