MADRID, 4 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Sachsensring circuit will host this weekend the German Grand Prix, the ninth round of the World Championship, with Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia, who with his official Ducati continues to rise and putting the current leader of MotoGP, the Spaniard Jorge Martín, on the ropes with the Pramac satellite, who has already announced that next year he will wear the colours of Aprilia, so the Italian firm will bet even more on the current world champion in this round and until the end of the championship.
Bagnaia has now won three in a row after his successes on Sunday at Assen, Mugello and Montmeló. And with that, despite Martín’s resistance, the Spaniard’s lead at the top of the championship has been reduced to a mere 10 points, so Bagnaia is within reach of a fourth consecutive victory to complete his personal comeback.
But Jorge Martín is looking for the exact opposite. He must put an end to his great rival’s great winning streak and be able to take a breath, a greater margin and, above all, confidence in himself. And the fact is that, since it was taken for granted that he would be Bagnaia’s teammate in the official team in 2025, until he ended up wearing the black Aprilia, Martín’s path has become more complicated.
Beyond this fight, in Germany it will be Marc Márquez – who will accompany Bagnaia in the official Borgo Panigale team – who will try to smile again. In Assen, in the Sprint on Saturday, he crashed, the first time in this World Championship that he could not complete the short race. And, on Sunday, a 16-second penalty for poor tyre pressure relegated him to tenth position, when he had been fourth on the track.
“If he doesn’t ride perfectly, he won’t even have a chance to fight with Martín and Bagnaia, who are very fast,” said the eldest of the Márquez brothers in the run-up to this German Grand Prix, on a Sachsenring circuit where he has won 11 times in total. However, he reiterates that his rivals are “one step ahead” at the moment.
And perhaps Marc Márquez is right, third in the World Championship 58 points behind Martín and 48 behind Bagnaia after that ill-fated visit to Assen. In Germany he wants to regain his sensations, but Sachsenring has dethroned him in recent years, since his last victory in 2021. In 2022 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) won and last year Jorge Martín took the cake, but in a ‘photo finish’ finale with just 64 thousandths of a second advantage over Bagnaia. A fight that could be repeated this year.
In the ‘second row’ but hoping to catch a podium on Saturday and Sunday are the Aprilias of Maverick Viñales, fifth in Assen, and Aleix Espargaró who, after announcing that in 2025 he will be a test rider for the official Honda team, hopes to be able to get on his Aprilia and, if he no longer has physical discomfort, enjoy it for the last time at Sachsenring. The Spaniard Pedro Acosta (GasGas) also needs to recover his sensations after not being able to finish in Assen.
GARCÍA AND ALONSO DEFEND THEIR LEAD IN MOTO2 AND MOTO3
In the intermediate category, Spaniard Sergio Garcia will have to hold firm to avoid losing the lead, as both Japanese Ai Ogura and American Joe Roberts are close behind, 14 and 23 points behind respectively. The American, who fractured his collarbone, was the biggest loser by not being able to race in Assen, where Ogura won with Spaniard Fermin Aldeguer second and leader Sergio Garcia third.
The smaller Moto3 category is increasingly led by the Colombian of Spanish origin David Alonso, although he took a small step back in fifth place at Assen. The biggest beneficiary was the Dutchman Collin Veijer, who finished second in a race won by the Spaniard Ortolá, who will try to continue on that path at Sachsenring, while the also Spanish Dani Holgado, eleventh in the Netherlands, must make up for lost ground, being now third in the World Championship.
2024-07-04 18:18:55
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