Marc Marquez outdueled his brother in a strategic masterclass to say victory on his debut with the manufacturing unit Ducati MotoGP staff within the Thailand Grand Prix.
Polesitter Marquez purposefully sat behind Gresini’s Alex Marquez for a big part of the race and made the decisive transfer on him with 4 laps to run to say what was an in any other case comfy 1.7s victory at Buriram.
Alex Marquez made it a memorable 1-2 for the Spanish brothers, whereas Francesco Bagnaia needed to accept third place regardless of closing quickly on the main duo within the closing phases.
Firstly of the race, Marquez pulled away cleanly from pole place to seize the holeshot, whereas a superior getaway allowed his team-mate Bagnaia to move the Gresini bike of Alex Marquez for second into Flip 1.
Bagnaia and Alex Marquez appeared to make contact on the exit of the identical nook, forcing the Spaniard vast off the monitor and behind Ai Ogura, however he rapidly repassed each Ogura and Bagnaia to reclaim second place.
On the entrance, Marc Marquez prolonged to the most effective a part of 1.5s and was seemingly on his solution to a dominant win when he mysteriously slowed down at Flip 3 on lap 7, permitting his brother to grab the lead on the following straight.
Whereas it initially appeared the six-time MotoGP champion had hit mechanical points, he was again up to the mark immediately, slotting in behind the Gresini bike for the following section of the race. This instructed that he had purposefully slowed all the way down to hold tyre pressures beneath management.
As the top of the race approached, it grew to become clear that Marc Marquez had a tempo benefit over his brother Alex, who was scuffling with the rear grip on his GP24.
On lap 23, the 32-year-old despatched his manufacturing unit Ducati up the within of Alex Marquez and pulled off the transfer to reclaim the lead.
The previous Honda star rapidly picked up the tempo on the next lap to construct a buffer for himself, finally profitable the race by the most effective a part of two seconds to safe the utmost haul of factors from the Thai opener. He had already received the dash race on Saturday.
Alex Marquez didn’t have the tempo to maintain up together with his brother on the final three laps, however did greater than sufficient to carry off the opposite works Ducati of Bagnaia, who at one stage gave the impression to be in competition for race win.
Fourth place went to the VR46 Ducati of Franco Morbidelli, who dropped three seconds behind the rostrum runners after difficult Bagnaia for third in the course of the center part of the race.
Trackhouse rookie Ogura placed on a surprising efficiency on his MotoGP debut to complete fifth, even beating the manufacturing unit Aprilia of Marco Bezzecchi, who completed greater than seven seconds behind in sixth place.
LCR’s Johann Zarco charged from twelfth on the grid to take a superb seventh on the most effective of the Hondas, forward of manufacturing unit KTM rider Brad Binder and Tech3’s Enea Bastianini, who additionally moved up the order within the ultimate laps of the race.
Binder and Bastianini had been the one factors scorers for KTM as Maverick Vinales completed a distant sixteenth and Pedro Acosta wound up nineteenth after remounting on his bike following a crash on lap 3.
Finishing the highest 10 was Fabio di Giannantonio for VR46.
Raul Fernandez and Joan Mir had been the one two riders to retire from the race.
MotoGP Thailand GP: Race outcomes:
Photographs from Thailand GP – Race
On this article
Be the primary to know and subscribe for real-time information e mail updates on these subjects