- 2024-10-06
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SPORTS
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MotoGP Japanese GP: Pedro Acosta Takes Maiden Pole Position, Francesco Bagnaia Wins Sprint Race at Motegi
The Round 16 of MotoGP 2024, Motul Grand Prix of Japan took place at the Mobility Resort Motegi in Motegi on October 5, 2024.
In Qualifying, Rookie sensation Pedro Acosta (Red Bull GASGAS Tech3) took his maiden pole position with a new lap record 1'43.018s.
Marc Marquez (Gresini Ducati) recorded the first ever sub 1m 42s lap of the Motegi circuit, but was stripped of the lap due to track limits, finally promoting Pedro Acosta to pole and dumping Marc Marquez down to 9th.
Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo) was 2nd and Maverick Vinales (Aprilia Racing) was 3rd, both riders will start Sunday's race alongside Pedro Acosta on the front row.
The second row of the grid will be Enea Bastianini (Ducati Lenovo) in 4th, Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) in fifth, and Franco Morbidelli (Pramac Ducati) in 6th, who advanced to Q2 from Q1.
Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) and his team-mate Marco Bezzecchi (VR46 Ducati) were 7th and 8th, respectively.
Championship leader Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati) crashed in the final two minutes, falling at Turn 9, and finished 11th.
Pedro Acosta said, “Super nice! It's a long time that I didn't see the '1' in front of my bike [in parc ferme]. We have to be happy because we see that in the last 4-5 races, we can put everything together and are getting more competitive. I'm happy because we are getting closer to the targets we want to achieve. For this, we need to be happy and calm for this afternoon.”- In the Sprint Race, Francesco Bagnaia took back-to-back wins, following Indonesian GP as his fifth victory of the season.
Pole sitter Pedro Acosta moved to top on lap 3 and led the race. But he crashed out in the final three laps and his first victory has gone.
Enea Bastianini finished in 2nd place ahead of Marc Marquez, who moved up to 3rd from 11th.
Jorge Martin was 4th and kept Championship lead 15 points over Francesco Bagnaia.
His team-mate Franco Morbidelli finished 5th ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio in 6th and Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) in 7th.
Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM) was 8th and the front row starting Maverick Vinales was 9th to score a single point.
Francesco Bagnaia said, “Finishing first is fantastic, so I'm very happy. I took a risk on the last lap by maybe slowing down a bit too much, but everything was under control. So, very happy. Just because in the last lap it started to rain a bit and when I saw I was with 1.3s of gap starting the last lap, I said 'Ok, I have margin, I can slow down by a second'. And I did it and it was ok. I think we worked really good compared to Mandalika, where on the first day I started struggling and it was difficult to improve my performance. But on this track from the start of the weekend in FP1 I felt much better and today the conditions were not the easiest ones, because of the rain and some wet patches. We had to sacrifice a bit of performance during the race to understand better the conditions before the race without using the map to go slower. So, I had to do all the race with the map with less power. But everything was fine. Was very difficult to lead today. Pedro was doing a very good job I think. When I saw him crash I just said to myself 'Ok, you have to push two, three laps to open more the gap the Enea and then control'. But he [Acosta] was pushing a lot, taking some margin, but on that lap I think he entered a bit too fast in that corner. But we have to expect him in the race tomorrow.” - Motul Grand Prix of Japan Qualifying Results
- Pedro Acosta / Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 / 1'43.018s
- Francesco Bagnaia / Ducati Lenovo / +0.246s
- Maverick Vinales / Aprilia Racing / +0.423s
- Enea Bastianini / Ducati Lenovo / +0.521s
- Brad Binder / Red Bull KTM / +0.643s
- Franco Morbidelli / Pramac Ducati / +0.810s
- Fabio Di Giannantonio / VR46 Ducati / +0.980s
- Marco Bezzecchi / VR46 Ducati / +1.055s
- Marc Marquez / Gresini Ducati / +1.118s
- Alex Marquez / Gresini Ducati / +1.245s
- Jorge Martin / Pramac Ducati / +1.285s
- Fabio Quartararo / Monster Yamaha / +1.479s
- Raul Fernandez / Trackhouse Aprilia / 1'44.122s
- Jack Miller / Red Bull KTM / 1'44.193s
- Aleix Espargaro / Aprilia Racing / 1'44.202s
- Johann Zarco / LCR Honda / 1'44.302s
- Joan Mir / Repsol Honda / 1'44.498s
- Augusto Fernandez / Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 / 1'44.547s
- Alex Rins / Monster Yamaha / 1'44.552s
- Luca Marini / Repsol Honda / 1'44.648s
- Takaaki Nakagami / LCR Honda / 1'44.886s
- Lorenzo Savadori / Aprilia Racing / 1'45.422s
- Remy Gardner / Monster Yamaha / 1'45.594s
Motul Grand Prix of Japan Sprint Race Results- Francesco Bagnaia / Ducati Lenovo / 21m 1.074s
- Enea Bastianini / Ducati Lenovo / +0.181s
- Marc Marquez / Gresini Ducati / +0.349s
- Jorge Martin / Pramac Ducati / +2.498s
- Franco Morbidelli / Pramac Ducati / +4.326s
- Fabio Di Giannantonio / VR46 Ducati / +4.446s
- Alex Marquez / Gresini Ducati / +11.444s
- Jack Miller / Red Bull KTM / +11.875s
- Maverick Vinales / Aprilia Racing / +11.947s
- Marco Bezzecchi / VR46 Ducati / +12.299s
- Raul Fernandez / Trackhouse Aprilia / +14.559s
- Fabio Quartararo / Monster Yamaha / +14.645s
- Luca Marini / Repsol Honda / +15.886s
- Johann Zarco / LCR Honda / +16.170s
- Augusto Fernandez / Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 / +20.522s
- Alex Rins / Monster Yamaha / +24.415s
- Lorenzo Savadori / Aprilia Racing / +25.482s
- Remy Gardner / Monster Yamaha / +32.620s
Photo by MotoGP - source : MotoGP
