One overtake at the start. Two penalties on the final lap. Three riders out almost immediately. A rear tyre arriving back in pit lane in alarming condition. And in the middle of all of it, Marc Marquez does the simplest thing possible: he takes the lead and never gives it back.
The Japanese GP Sprint ends with the #93 winning in 20’50.376, but the final podium is not actually clear until after the chequered flag.
Jorge Martin crosses the line second. Enea Bastianini third but then here comes the penalties. Both exceeded track limits on the final lap and are each demoted one position. The official order becomes:
Marc Marquez P1.
Diogo Moreira P2.
Jorge Martin P3.
Enea Bastianini P4.
For Moreira, it is a first MotoGP podium. For Bastianini, it is a podium lost to a strip of green paint. And perhaps that is the main Italian story from Saturday.
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Marc wastes no time in the Japanese Sprint
Martin had started Saturday perfectly. Pole position with a time of 1’42.371. A new Motegi lap record, 0.110 ahead of Marc Marquez. But the pole advantage lasts only a few corners. Marc gets ahead immediately and controls the Sprint from there.
Twelve points take him to 306, while Martin’s third place moves him to 313. The Championship gap is now only seven points.
Bastianini: the podium was there
Simply writing “P4” does not tell Enea Bastianini’s Sprint.
He starts seventh after already showing strong pace on Friday. Then he races his way into podium contention. At the chequered flag, he is third. Only afterwards does the track-limits penalty arrive. One position lost.
P4.
Martin had crossed the line 2.466 seconds behind Marc, Bastianini 2.508 behind and Moreira 2.754 behind. Yet both Martin and Bastianini are demoted. Moreira is promoted to second. Sometimes a podium disappears through an overtake.
This time, Enea loses it after he has already crossed the finish line with it.
Moreira’s first MotoGP podium in the Japanese Sprint
Diogo Moreira starts ninth. He finishes fourth on the road. And ends Saturday second.
It is his first MotoGP podium, coming in his rookie season and at Honda’s home Grand Prix. The penalties create the final result, but Moreira had to be close enough to benefit from them.
And he was.
Bezzecchi takes P6
Marco Bezzecchi had shown stronger pace before the Sprint. Fourth in Practice. Fast in Saturday morning’s running. Fourth on the grid, only 0.159 from pole.
The Sprint does not follow the same trajectory. Bez finishes sixth, 6.984 seconds behind the winner, taking four points. He now sits on 268 points, 45 behind Martin.
Not a disaster. But not the Saturday his earlier speed appeared to promise either.
Diggia’s opportunity disappears immediately
Fabio Di Giannantonio starts sixth. His Sprint is effectively over almost immediately. A first-lap incident involving Alex Marquez also takes Pedro Acosta and Diggia out of contention, with all three failing to complete the opening lap.
For Fabio, it is a frustrating waste of a weekend that had looked promising until then.
Pecco and the rear tyre that tells more than the result
Francesco Bagnaia starts from thirteenth. But the Sprint ends before the chequered flag. Pecco returns to the pits on the final lap with a heavily damaged rear tyre and is classified as a non-finisher. Television images show entire sections of tread missing from the tyre. After the race, a clearer explanation emerges of what Bagnaia had been feeling on the bike. Pecco says he began experiencing severe vibrations from lap six onwards. Rear grip was already a problem and, while trying to control those vibrations, he began relying more heavily on the rear brake.
The combination placed even more stress on the tyre as the situation progressively deteriorated. The visible damage is described as chunking: sections of rubber break away from the tread, leaving hollowed-out areas across the tyre surface. It is not the same as blistering, that involves heat-related bubbles forming in the rubber, whereas chunking means actual pieces of tread are torn away.
And Bagnaia is not the only rider to experience serious degradation on the soft rear. Martin also reaches the end with a heavily distressed tyre and admits that, had the Sprint lasted one more lap, he would probably have had to stop. Marc Marquez, meanwhile, completes the race without any obvious tyre issue, while Marco Bezzecchi — one of the very few riders, alongside Jack Miller, to choose the medium rear — reaches the finish with his tyre intact, although the choice costs him performance during the Sprint.
At Motegi Pecco’s problem is no longer simply about performance. This time, the lack of grip and the vibrations were accompanied by tyre degradation severe enough to prevent him from even reaching the chequered flag.
A green line changes the podium
Marc wins. Martin crosses second. Bastianini crosses third. Moreira crosses fourth. Then the official classification changes everything behind the winner.
Moreira P2. Martin P3. Bastianini P4.
The track wrote one result. A strip of green paint wrote another.
For Enea, the frustration is obvious. But there is one thing the penalty cannot remove: The P3 disappeared from the classification. The speed that put him there did not.
UPDATE: the soft rear is withdrawn for the Grand Prix
Following the issues seen during the Sprint, the tyre situation leads to a significant decision ahead of Sunday’s full-distance race.
Michelin’s soft rear tyre has been withdrawn as an option for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Motegi’s original allocation included three rear specifications — Soft, Medium and Hard — to account for the uncertainty created by the completely resurfaced track. The Soft and Medium use the standard casing, while the Hard features the reinforced construction previously used in Austria.
The decision follows a Sprint in which several soft rear tyres showed severe degradation, with Bagnaia’s eventually suffering chunking and losing sections of tread.
For Sunday, one of the weekend’s biggest variables has therefore been removed entirely. It is no longer a question of whether anyone will risk the Soft over Grand Prix distance. That option no longer exists.
LINK
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