Maverick Viñales finishes third and Marc Márquez crashes again in the race
MADRID, 29 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Italian rider Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) had a perfect Saturday by taking pole and the MotoGP sprint race at the Dutch Grand Prix, the eighth round of the World Championship, in both cases ahead of Spaniards Jorge Martín (Ducati), leader of the championship, and Maverick Viñales (Aprilia), while Marc Márquez (Ducati) suffered falls in both sessions.
With his victory in the short race at Assen, ‘Pecco’ is now just 15 points behind the Madrid native in the championship, who will have to do well on Sunday to defend his lead. Viñales, meanwhile, was first of the rest in both the fight for pole and in the sprint, with Italians Enea Bastianini (Ducati) and Fabio di Giannantonio (Ducati) completing the ‘Top 5’.
Things were much worse for the eight-time champion Marc Márquez; A fall conditioned his fight in Q2 and forced him to start seventh in the sprint race, in which as soon as he started he ended up in the gravel again. Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) also fell to the ground, just as happened on Friday.
Bagnaia defended his pole position once the lights went out, with Martín on his wheel and Marc Márquez, who started seventh, moving up to fifth place. However, the rider from Cervera was soon out of the fight after hitting the inside kerb at Turn 1 and going into the gravel after just one lap. It was the second fall of the day for the rider from Lleida.
‘Pecco’ began to shoot and little by little he increased his distance over the Madrid native, who saw his rival for the championship escape. Behind, Maverick Viñales settled in third place, with two seconds ahead of the group fighting for fourth place.
Only the heavy fall of Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) on the last lap, after suffering another on Friday, upset the end of the race in the ‘Cathedral’ of speed, in which Bagnaia once again showed his strength.
As for the rest of the Spaniards, Alex Márquez (Ducati) finished seventh and Pedro Acosta (KTM) closed the ‘Top 10’. Joan Mir (Repsol Honda) was fourteenth, Augusto Fernández (KTM) finished fifteenth, Raúl Fernández (Aprilia) seventeenth and Alex Rins (Yamaha), nineteenth.
POLE FOR BAGNAIA
Bagnaia had previously secured his first pole of the season and the nineteenth of his career in the premier class. Alongside the Italian, the rider from San Sebastián de los Reyes and Viñales, who finished four-tenths behind the poleman, also secured the front row for Sunday’s race.
After a Q1 in which Pedro Acosta (KTM) and the Italian Fabio di Giannantonio (Ducati) secured their place, Bagnaia took the lead of the final session with a spectacular 1:31.0 that pushed his main rival, Jorge Martín, to the limit.
The leader responded to the avoidance with a display of explosiveness that saw him improve his time to an incredible 1:30.877, going below 1:31 for the first time, but ‘Pecco’ kept up the fight with a stratospheric time of 1:30.540 with five minutes to go.
While Marc Márquez (Ducati) crashed at Turn 7 just seconds from the end, suffering his tenth fall of the season, Martín still had time to lower his time, but it was not enough to overtake Bagnaia, from whom he was 81 thousandths of a second.
Alex Márquez (Ducati) and Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia), who recovered from his heavy crash on Friday, completed the top five in Q2, with Marc Márquez finishing seventh despite leaving the session early. Acosta will also start Sunday in tenth place and Raúl Fernández (Aprilia) in twelfth.
Among those who did not manage to advance to Q2, Alex Rins (Yamaha) will again start sixteenth, Joan Mir (Repsol Honda) will start twentieth and Augusto Fernández (KTM) twenty-second.
2024-06-29 09:53:55
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