After finishing second in yesterday’s Sprint, Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati) dominated a wet main event earlier today to take the win with a 4 second margin over second place Johann Zarco (Ducati) and third place Alex Marquez (Ducati).
Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) crashed while running near the front, and despite remounting and finishing the race, scored zero points today, handing the championship points lead to Bezzecchi. The series continues in two weeks at COTA in Austin, Texas.
For full results of today’s race, take a look here.
Here’s an excellent article from a year ago that explains why Ducati has been so dominant lately. Props to them.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/motorcycles/motogp/why-ducati-should-rename-its-motogp-bike-the-desmodiffuser/
The fact that they race in the wet is amazing. A wet race is the great equalizer in racing, it reduces the effect of peak horsepower therefore making all motorcycles similar. The skill of each rider becomes much more apparent. I felt the race was excellent but the sprint although interesting to watch had too heavy of a outcome on the race.
Very cool. Better than F1
agree
F..ck of Ducati. Yamaha…
I see Yamaha pulling out of MotoGp (Suzuki) and Honda following soon after.
If we are taking everything at face value and the japanese manufacturers are truly doing everything they possibly can yet can not compete…and worse…always falling further behind…then they have to quit.
go Duc, KTM, and Aprillia!
Aprillia. But… too expensive.
Nah.. I bet they’ll stay and right their ships. Both of these brands eclipse the others in market share in Asia where GP marketing is meaningful. They’re not going to give up that easily.
To get a sense of whether the Japanese manufactures will leave MotoGP (or racing in general), look at their corporate stance on E-bikes and/or “renewable” fuels.
Perhaps the Sprint races are intended to wean fans off the longer GP races, so even shorter-than-sprint E-bike races are not seen as “that short”.
Honda and Yamaha corporately appear to have bought into the Climate Change agenda, so ICE bikes will either be eliminated or relegated to second-string status until they are outlawed by “international consensus”.
Corporately, Suzuki has made their decision and the GP team was the first casualty. Given the EU has already begun to back away from their EV-only mandate dates, Suzuki may find itself unable to rebuild their brand should ICE/petro engines NOT be outlawed world-wide as St. Greta wants.
Philosophically, motorcycle riders tend to be individualists and free-thinkers, which is the ultimate anathema to the political and corporate class. Can’t have people thinking for themselves or controlling their own vehicles.
the choice to ride e-bike or ICE bikes will be made for us.
the endless supply of concerned citizens will concern themselves with ICE products and will most certainly help us to make their correct choice.
Maybe not… look how the Bud-Light fiasco is rolling out. Losing $6Billion market-cap in a week tends to get the attention of even the most ESG-friendly Corporate Suite parasites. We were supposed to be too distracted by all the “crises” to notice they were actually going to attempt the “you will own nothing and be happy” roll-out.
The ESG/”climate change” battle lines have been drawn, and the BS “sustainable fuels” backstop won’t hold for them either. The first major country to actually fully ban petroleum from their economy will fail spectacularly. Also, there won’t be enough copper or other metals above the ground in 100 years to accomplish the 2050 deadline for complete electrification of all ground/sea transportation. I don’t see electric 747s anytime soon, unless some magic batteries appear… or should we believe that’s “only a decade away”? If so, where’s the jetpack Popular Science promised me in the 1960’s. (Yes, I’m THAT old.)
And I also remember when “climate change” meant an impending Ice Age. Seriously. But of course NOW they are claiming that in the 1970s “the consensus” was not for an Ice Age, that was only a “few fringe extremists and the media”. Not like now, where it is a few fringe extremists and the media claiming “climate change” now means warming…
Conservation, better efficiency, ABSOLUTELY, but pretending the world can reach Net Zero by 2050 is fantasy.
In the seventies they were on about cooler climates ahead because the natural trend over thousands of years would have us on a long cooling trend.
Well that never happened. There hasn’t been a below average month in over forty years.
That’s what all the fuss is about. Instead of a long cooling trend, we are on a fairly rapid warming trend.
I got no kids. I’ll croak soon enough. Whatever.
Interesting how much I disagree w/VLJ. I found the race a lot of fun and very exciting. So happy to see MB12 win his first MotoGP.
Does anyone know what caused Peco’s front end to wash out?
I find Alex Marquez a frank and refreshing change from his brother MM93. And I disagree with the on-air person who said how much he missed Marc. Wish I could go to COTA; if you’re anywhere near that track, go!
“Does anyone know what caused Peco’s front end to wash out?”
you are obviously joking…it was Marc Marquez of course who took out Pecca…and his own teammate Mir, Bastiniani, and Pol and Aleix.
An as of yet unmentioned problem caused by the new race weekend format- “Wrong race..”.
“I find Alex Marquez a frank and refreshing change from his brother MM93”
agree. Alex is surely quite a different personality than his brother.
after Alex’s brother kindly got Alex a job at Honda, Alex surely wasn’t ever going to risk anything trying to get results on Honda’s bike.
Alex is the best…great for the sport. MM…is just garbage.
Anyone who wins a MotoGP race in the rain…by four seconds…has my vote for Ultimate Balls of Steel.
If you have the chance go back to 2021 Austrian GP and watch Brad Binder. I have ridden slicks on a track with a few damp patches almost crashed riding across a damp patch. Slicks on wet pavement is like riding on ice. I don’t know how he did it. Balls of titanium!
Other than Zarco, that was a fairly boring race. Only seventeen riders on the grid, thanks to the Sprint race claiming its second victim, Joan Mir, after claiming Enea Bastiniani two racers running now.
The Sprint race is fun, but, perhaps, too taxing. At the rate they’re going, it won’t be long before there won’t be enough riders on the grid to complete the points-scoring order.
Oh, well. Rain races are always a drag. Hopefully CotA will provide a better show.
I always find a wet race exciting. It’s like traction-chicken. I’ve come to accept that we’re not usually going to see the sword fights that are more common in Moto2 and Moto3. Everyone is so close and running so close to the limit that there just isn’t enough margin to play in.
Fully agree about the sprint race. I am not invested. It was cool seeing Binder win from so far back but the main race on Sunday still effectively “erases” it but look where we are now. By mid season we’ll be lucky if there’s a dozen bikes on the grid. The whole class almost died that last time that happened (for cost reasons).