THAILAND:
Spain’s Jorge Martin led from pole at the checkered flag to win the Thailand MotoGP sprint race on Saturday and cut the deficit behind championship leader Francesco Bagnaia to 18 points.
Pramac-Ducati rider Martin claimed his fifth straight sprint victory, 0.933s ahead of second-placed South African Brad Binder on a KTM, with Italian Luca Marini’s Ducati-VR46 third. Bagnaia was seventh.
The king of the short form Martin went into the first corner with the lead and never got a head, as Bagnaia suffered a poor start from the second row, falling back to ninth by the end of the first lap.
Bagnaia, at the factory Ducati, finally found some rhythm four laps into the 13-lap grid and although he returned to seventh, he was unable to make any inroads on Marco Bezzecchi, who finished sixth on his Ducati-VR46.
Honda’s Marc Marquez crossed the line fourth with Aleix Espargaro’s Aprilia in fifth.
“It pretty much went according to plan,” said Martin, who realized he had to be cautious when the flying Binder, who came through the field from fifth on the grid, passed Marini on lap seven to move up to second .
“I tried to save tires at the start,” Martin said. “Then I saw Brad pass Luca and I said, ‘OK, maybe it’s time to go.’
“I pushed the lead to 1.9 (seconds) and tried to manage the tires until the end.”
Binder started best of all and overtook Bezzecchi and Espargaro to move up to third by the end of the second lap.
The South African thought he could challenge for victory if he could get past Marini quicker.
“The plan today was obviously not to come second, but to win of course, but, second place, we’ll take it,” Binder said.
The result leaves Bagnaia with 369 points heading into Sunday’s 26-lap grand prix, where he will restart sixth on the grid with pole-sitter Martin now on 351 after taking 12 for the sprint win.
“I missed the start a little bit,” Bagnaia admitted.
“But we managed to close the gap and my feeling was so good with my bike and so to finish seventh when you are so fast and so strong is not good for us.
“So we have to think about it for tomorrow and I have to adapt to improve my pace in the first laps.”
Martin started the weekend 27 points behind with four legs of the 20-race season to go, but also started from pole a week ago in Australia before his gamble on a soft rear tire backfired as he dropped to fifth.
With 25 points up for grabs for the winners of Sunday’s MotoGP main event, the title battle could get even tighter before the riders head to Malaysia’s Sepang circuit in two weeks’ time as the championship duel looks likely to be over.
“I think it will be a different race,” Martin said of Sunday’s 26-lap grand prix around the 4,554km Buriram International Circuit. “I expect Pecco (Bagnaia) to improve.”
The final two race weekends of the season are in Qatar and Valencia next month.
