Indonesian GP: Marc Marquez Wins Dramatic Sprint, Take Championship Lead

Turn 1 Crash Removes Pole-Sitter Fernandez and Bezzecchi, Martin’s Tyre-Pressure Problem and Late Save Hand Marquez a Four-Point Title Lead; Ogura Takes Second and Di Giannantonio Third

Marc Marquez won the Tissot Sprint at the Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia and took the championship lead from Jorge Martin in the process. The race was rewritten on the first corner, when pole-sitter Raul Fernandez and Marco Bezzecchi crashed out. Martin then led before losing time with a tyre-pressure problem and a late off-track moment, and finished fourth.

Ai Ogura took second for SuperFile Trackhouse MotoGP Team and Fabio Di Giannantonio completed the podium. Marquez now leads Martin 343 points to 339, with the Grand Prix still to come on Sunday.

Fernandez had been the story of Friday, setting a new all-time lap record of 1:28.725. He took pole for the Sprint with a 1:28.852, ahead of Bezzecchi on 1:28.961 and Di Giannantonio on 1:29.048, which put two Aprilias and a Ducati on the front row. The championship rivals started on row two, Marquez fourth and Martin fifth alongside Fermin Aldeguer in sixth. Ogura lined up seventh, with Alex Marquez eighth and Pedro Acosta ninth.

Conditions were dry for the 13-lap, 55.913-kilometre Sprint, with an air temperature of 29°C, a track temperature of 63°C and humidity at 73%. The race started at 15:02.

Fernandez and Bezzecchi went side by side to Turn 1, and what began as a drag race turned into a collision. Marquez and Di Giannantonio were both moving up the inside as well. The leading four ran slightly wide, Di Giannantonio sat up and forced Marquez to do the same, and Bezzecchi was left with nowhere to go. He crashed along with Fernandez. Both were unhurt, and both were out of the Sprint within about 20 seconds of the start (15:02'23).

Martin carved around the apex and took the lead.

Martin completed the opening lap in 1:34.176, with Marquez 0.126 seconds behind. Ogura ran third and Di Giannantonio fourth, ahead of Alex Marquez, who was defending in the group behind.

Martin built a gap over the next few laps. He set the fastest lap of the Sprint, a 1:29.752 on Lap 4, and his advantage over Marquez peaked at 1.709 seconds after Lap 5. It stayed above 1.3 seconds through Lap 8. Marquez answered with a 1:29.857 on Lap 8, his best of the race, but did not close the gap.

On Lap 9 Martin sat up and lost more than two seconds. His lap time was a 1:32.662, against roughly 1:30.0 for the laps around it. Martin said afterwards that the cause was tyre pressure. Marquez inherited the lead and held it to the flag, with Martin 0.903 seconds behind at the end of that lap.

The leading group was now tight. On Lap 10 Martin was 0.306 seconds behind Marquez, with Ogura 0.847 back and Di Giannantonio 1.009 back.

Acosta had been running fifth. He took a long lap for exceeding track limits on Lap 10, which dropped him behind Alex Marquez and out of the podium fight. The lap cost him about three seconds (a 1:33.071), and he finished sixth. He had earlier received a track-limits warning, as had Marquez, Maverick Viñales, Di Giannantonio, Aldeguer and Diogo Moreira.

Martin recovered and began reeling Marquez in again. On Lap 11 he was 0.448 seconds behind, and the title gap between the two stood at a single point. Then on Lap 12 he went wide and off the circuit at Turn 15 and had to save it. His lap time was 1:31.400, with almost all the loss in the final sector, and it dropped him from second to fourth, behind Ogura and Di Giannantonio.

Ogura chased down the leader with Di Giannantonio behind him. The Japanese rider was 0.754 seconds back with two laps to go and cut that to 0.509 seconds by the line. Marquez crossed first for his first Sprint win at Mandalika. It follows his Motegi double a week earlier, when he won both the Sprint and the Grand Prix.

Ogura’s result is a strong response to Motegi, where he was fifth in the Sprint and sixth in the Grand Prix.

FULL SPRINT CLASSIFICATION

Did Not Finish Lap 1: Raul Fernandez (SuperFile Trackhouse) and Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia Racing), both crashed at Turn 1, both unhurt.

Pole Position: Raul Fernandez, 1:28.852. Fastest Lap: Jorge Martin, 1:29.752 on Lap 4 (172.5 km/h).

CHAMPIONSHIP: MARQUEZ LEADS BY FOUR

The swing from the Sprint is six points in Marquez’s favour. He scored 12 and Martin six, turning Martin’s two-point lead into a four-point deficit.

Ogura’s second place lifts him to within a point of Acosta in the title race. Bezzecchi stays third, 59 points off the lead, after the Turn 1 crash left him scoreless.

In the team standings, Aprilia Racing leads on 623 points, ahead of Ducati Lenovo Team (509) and SuperFile Trackhouse MotoGP Team (462). Ducati has retaken the constructors’ lead on 481 points to Aprilia’s 478, after the two were level on 469 before the weekend. KTM is third on 300.

Sunday’s race carries 25 points for the winner and 20 for second, so the four-point gap can change quickly. Fernandez and Bezzecchi will be back on the grid after their Turn 1 crash.

Credit Photo : MotoGP