The Malaysian round this weekend saw Alex Marquez (Ducati) in fine form as he won the Sprint on Saturday and finished second during the full distance race on Sunday. His attempt at sweeping the two races was stopped by a resurgent Enea Bastianini (Ducati) who took the Sunday win.
The Saturday Sprint saw Jorge Martin (Ducati) finish second and title rival Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) third. On Sunday, Bagnaia filled out the podium behind Bastianini and Marquez.
The contest for this year’s championship remains close, with Bagnaia holding a 14 point advantage over Martin with two rounds (four races) remaining. Next weekend the riders will be in Qatar.
For full results and points for Saturday’s Sprint race, visit the MotoGP site here.
For full results and points for today’s MotoGP race, visit the MotoGP site here.
Interesting thing i’ve got from last round is that Fermín Aldeguer can replace MM93 at factory Honda. Just “blasphemous rumours” for now.
I believe Luca Marini has been confirmed as the Repsol replacement rider for next year.
The more interesting question is who will then replace Luca on the more competitive VR46 Ducati?
Interesting. It is one year contract for Repsol and there are no one to sign it. I do not care about Ducati
My only interest in Ducati in the series is the presumption that whoever fills the seat will be almost assuredly competitive. A Moto2 graduate? Pol Espargaro?
Fermín Aldeguer for VR46 was supposed. Moto2
I’m indifferent to the brand. A Ducati seat is the surest bet of competitiveness in MotoGP so I’m interested in who will take that seat. Since my last post it’s sounding like an existing Ducati rider, Fabio Digiantonio will take it after losing his Gresini Ducati to Marc Marquez. Digi is decent but hasn’t performed at the level of other Ducati mounted riders.
Great to see Bastaini back to form. He used to win on tire management, coming from behind and today he simply rode away from everfrom the gun. A. Marquez did a tremendous job too.
You could call it the Ducati Cup but there sure has been some good racing this year with more to come so it would seem.
Let’s root for a final race show down 😶
Elsewhere I saw an article where the FIM will apply some concessions to help the others catch up. Limiting Ducati’s per-rider tire, engine and testing allotment seem to be what they’re settling on. Similar actions are what it took to get KTM, Suzuki and Ducati up to speed before.
And now that there’s talk of concessions I can’t help but notice that Honda is really easy to find if you start at the bottom of the results page and work your way up. Parhaps they are getting their engine tunes for the rest of the year from their XR series of bikes. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Next year they have two new CBRs they are going to be selling. What do you bet their results will be a whole lot better next year.
They always have CBR’s to sell. The CBR 1000RR (R?) is by all rights an excellent hyper-sport bike. They’re only doing a little better in WSBK than they are in MotoGP and their riders aren’t on the level of Marquez over there.
The concessions make sense. Ducati fields 2x as many bikes as anyone else and shares an open data policy among their teams. They’re able to iterate and develop faster than the others. Honda was in this same position an era or two ago.
The more things change…..
Seems like when Honda and Yamaha were dominating it was with a great bike and one main winning rider. Ducati is flooding the field with equipment.
New CBRs according to the Brits.
The Honda V5 was the bomb at the time. It was a good product that teams wanted. The Ducati has the same sort of attractive piece of equipment now.
Crowd sourcing wasn’t a thing then. Ducati is weaponizing it to impressive effect now. Complain about them if you like. But their results are earned through smart work. Work smart or work hard. Ducati shares data, listens, and moves quickly. Honda can make a nice piece of kit. But once they have made it they don’t share data, listen, or move quickly. They have become mired in their ways and are suffering for it. And HRC doesn’t seem to be able to build the future anymore. So now they sand bag for better concessions. Some head needs to roll in management somewhere.
Mick,
Replying to you on this comment because I can’t reply below.
As a distant observer of GP (and other disciplines) for a few decades now (and parenthetically, feeling like an old fart), I’ve watched HRC’s behaviors closely enough to feel like, as you mention, they are reaping the rewards of their past efforts. Fair enough, hindsight is 20/20, but let’s say that even from this distance, some stuff sort of “adds up” to how they are in the current situation.
Honda hasn’t figured out that it is top-shelf important that their racers also be development riders, not just relying their test riders. MMarquez got on the bike Pedrosa developed, and while he could exploit its absolute limits, Marquez obviously didn’t bring much in terms of development. Unfortunately, their test riders and engineers/teams either couldn’t bring forward the needed changes, or they weren’t listened to.
How has Ducati and KTM moved forward? By gathering LOTS of data, but also listening to all concerned. Ducati upper management FINALLY learned to listen, too late with Lorenzo and that they shouldn’t have listened to Rossi. A great rider can make a good bike perform beyond the spec sheet. But a crap bike is a crap bike and even the arguably most talented rider ever can’t make it work. MM obviously can’t lead the charge back to tech greatness, so he’s jumping ship… I think Ducati will soon tell Gresini that while MM brings a lot of fan/sponsor/media attention, if he can’t play nice with the rest of the Ducati “family” he can’t stay. He’s already accusing other Duc racers of playing mind games for saying nice things about him. Ya, the problem child emerges.
Gigi proved that listening is key as Lorenzo was walking out the door. Give the rider the sometimes “minor” improvements they ask for, and see if the results follow. Not willy-nilly, as experience as well as creativity are required in this game.
Honda corporately is also on the horns of the EV dilemma, is electric going to be a politically motivated expensive boondoggle? The pie-in-the-sky “magic battery” to solve the century-old range and charging-time issues. And then where’s the GRID to power it all.So I’d think the EV push is requiring budget cuts across the board. They have brought a bunch of car guys into the bike engineering team in Japan… Uh oh…
Great to see Bastaini back to form. He used to win on tire management, coming from behind and today he simply rode away from everfrom the gun. A. Marquez did a tremendous job too. I bet big bro is licking his chops to get on a Ducati. Yamaha is showing signs of life too.
With he rider moves for next year, 2024 has the potential to be the most competitive MotoGP season in the class’ history.
The physical tolls on the riders has been on display these last couple of races. Good little battle between Jorge and Pecco, and it’s nice to see Alex come into his own. It’s fun to be this far into the season and there’s still a fight for number 1! I think it’s a long shot for Jorge, but next weekend should be very interesting.