PHILLIP ISLAND: Spain’s Jorge Martin extended his championship lead to 16 points over title rival Francesco Bagnaia on Saturday after leading from start to finish in a windswept Australian MotoGP sprint race.

Italy’s defending world champion Bagnaia could only come fourth, with Spaniard Marc Marquez second and another Italian, Enea Bastianini, completing the podium in third.

Fabio di Giannantonio was fifth and Franco Morbidelli sixth on a day marred by a huge crash between Aprilia rider Maverick Vinales and Marco Bezzecchi on his Ducati-VR46.

Vinales appeared to get caught in Bezzecchi’s slipstream late in the race, making contact that sent the riders and bikes barrelling into the gravel.

They both appeared to be OK, although battered and bruised.

Several other riders hit the deck in the gusty conditions, with just 15 of the 22 starters finishing the 13-lap race.

“I saw it was increasing a lot, the gap, so I was trying to keep a really fast pace,” said Martin, who started from pole on his Pramac for the third straight time in Australia and clocked his first win at Phillip Island. “When I saw I had a big gap already then I managed a bit to make it until the end.

“It wasn’t easy,” he added. “The wind was a lot and it wasn’t constant, it was like coming and going out. So finally winning again, I am super happy and we have to be focused on tomorrow, it’s going to be a really long race.”

Ducati star Bagnaia won the sprint and main event in Japan two weeks ago to close the championship gap with Martin to just 10 points.

But Martin proved unstoppable on an overcast and cool Australian day.

The win earned him 12 points to pile more pressure on Bagnaia ahead of the grand prix on Sunday, with just three race weekends left after Australia.

Six-time world champion Marquez moved up to joint third in the standings, 84 points behind Martin, alongside Ducati’s Bastianini.

Martin had the perfect start, unlike Marquez who went wide on his Gresini at the first corner and slipped from second to eighth as Bagnaia moved up to fourth.

Marquez stormed back past Bagnaia and into contention but could not catch Martin, who streaked away to open a 2.6sec lead at the halfway mark and cross the line 1.520sec clear.

“With the wind and everything I went wide (at turn one), but the pace was there,” Marquez said. “Let’s see if tomorrow I can avoid the mistake of that first corner. But the feeling of the bike was good and the pace was very similar to Jorge, so let’s see if tomorrow we can fight with him.”

It was the first sprint race at Phillip Island after last year’s planned race was cancelled because of bad weather.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2024