Bagnaia Profits From Martin’s Mistake for Fourth Straight Win –

MotoGP Germany marks the final round of the first half of the 2024 season, with the summer break beginning on Monday. After Maverick Vinales was fastest on Friday, championship leader Jorge Martin set pole position on Saturday, before converting that to a victory in the Sprint.

Race

Francesco Bagnaia took victory in a closely fought German Grand Prix, after Jorge Martin crashed out of the lead.

Bagnaia took the lead early on, passing Raul Fernandez for third at the start, Miguel Oliveira for second at turn 13 on the first lap, and then Martin for the lead, again at turn 13, on lap two.

It didn’t last long, though, as Martin reclaimed the lead at the first turn on lap seven. Then, Franco Morbidelli, who was in third place after the strongest start to a race of his season, passed for second at turn one on lap nine.

Bagnaia was then under pressure from Alex Marquez for a few laps, but around the half-distance mark he began to up his pace. On lap 15, he passed Morbidelli to reclaim second, and then he set his sights on Martin.

Throughout the second half of the race, Martin and Bagnaia were essentially blow-for-blow, able to almost precisely match each other’s lap times on each tour of the Sachsenring in the low-1:23s. A 1:20.9 from Martin on lap 23 seemed to tip the tide in his favour, but Bagnaia kept up the pressure and had reduced the gap down to half-a-second by the penultimate lap.

At that point, Martin crashed out at the first turn, in similar but not identical circumstances to the way he crashed from the lead in the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix back at the end of April.

Bagnaia inherited the lead with a gap of four seconds behind him, and when took the chequered flag at the end of lap 30 he took the championship lead with it.

Behind, Marc Marquez rode a patient race to finish second. As has been the case with Marquez in general this season and especially this weekend in the Sachsenring, his route to second was not straightforward. While battling with Franco Morbidelli over what at the time was fourth place, Marquez dove underneath the Italian when he ran wide at the first turn. Morbidelli returned to the line on the exit, but left a small amount of room on his inside. Marquez made contact with Morbidelli as their lines converged, each rider oblivious to the position of the other as Marquez’ front wheel was slightly behind Morbidelli, and Marquez himself was hanging off the inside of his Ducati.

The contact set Marquez’ airbag off, and he then had to fend of Enea Bastianini. When he’d ssuccessfully repelled Bastianini’s attacks, and he regained his composure after the incident with Morbidelli, he re-caught and passed him. After Martin fell, Marquez was now in third, and by the end of lap 29 he was second, passing his teammate, Alex, at turn 12 on lap 29.

It was a strong recovery from Marquez having qualified only 13th, but he lost more points in the championship.

Alex Marquez completed yet another all-Ducati podium (the sixth in succession) and made it a Gresini 2-3 for his first rostrum of the season.

Morbidelli battled late on with Bastianini for fourth, but eventually lost out to the factory Ducati rider, Morbidelli himself taking fifth.

Miguel Oliveira was the best non-Ducati in sixth, 10 seconds off the win. Pedro Acosta took seventh, ahead of Marco Bezzecchi in eighth, while Brad Binder and Raul Fernandez completed the top 10.

Sprint

Jorge Martin took a commanding, if not dominant, victory in the MotoGP Sprint at the Sachsenring, after a four-way fight for the win.

In fairness, calling it a ‘fight’ between the top four riders might be a stretch, but there were four riders who were all in contention to win until the final lap, more or less.

Martin lost the lead from the beginning when he ran wide with Miguel Oliveira at the first turn, allowing Francesco Bagnaia to take the holeshot. Bagnaia didn’t have the speed, though, and soon after Martin cleared Oliveira he made his way through Bagnaia. From there, he wasn’t headed and eventually took his first victory since the French Grand Prix by 0.676 seconds.

Soon after Martin passed Bagnaia, Oliveira did, too. Like versus Martin, Bagnaia couldn’t respond. It didn’t get any worse for Bagnaia, though, as behind him was his teammate, Enea Bastianini, who found it equally difficult to pass Bagnaia as the reigning champion found it to reclaim second from Oliveira.

Bastianini in fourth was over four seconds clear of fifth-placed Franco Morbidelli, while a final turn pass gave Marc Marquez sixth place by 0.003 seconds over Maverick Vinales, who took seventh.

Brad Binder, Alex Marquez, and Marco Bezzecchi completed the top 10.

Qualifying

Jorge Martin set pole position with a new lap record in a qualifying session that was heavily disrupted by yellow flags.

Martin managed to avoid them all by getting his 1:19.423 in early, beating Maverick Vinales’ 1:19.622 from Practice on Friday afternoon by almost 0.2 seconds to take pole position.

Despite Martin’s record speed, Miguel Oliveira was less than half-a-tenth behind in second place, comfortably his best qualifying with Aprilia machinery. Rounding out the front row was Raul Fernandez, having come through Q1, who made it a double front row for the Trackhouse team.

Francesco Bagnaia was on a lap that could have challenged Martin’s pole time, or at least put him on the front row, when yellow flags cancelled his lap. They were out for a nasty high-side for Maverick Vinales at turn 10, which left the Spanish rider down in seventh on the grid.

Completing the second row behind Bagnaia are Alex Marquez, another crasher and again to the detriment of Bagnaia, and Franco Morbidelli; while Fabio Di Giannantonio and Enea Bastianini complete row three behind Vinales.

Pedro Acosta was 10th, ahead of Brad Binder and Marco Bezzecchi, the Italian the second rider to make it through from Q1.

The main rider to miss out on Q2 was Marc Marquez, an 11-time winner at the Sachsenring. Having missed out on the top 10 in Practice on Friday afternoon following his turn 11 crash, Marquez was pushed out of the top two positions in Q1 by Fernandez and Bezzecchi. A final run for Marquez was then disrupted by Stefan Bradl who was riding extremely slowly on the line through turn two. Bradl tried to get out of way, but he acted too late. The German tried to apologise to Marquez when they lined up for practice starts, but the eight-times champion seemed uninterested.

FP2

Miguel Oliveira was fastest in FP2, continuing his encouraging form from Friday and further confirming the competitiveness of Aprilia this weekend.

Oliveira was top by a distance in FP2 with a rear tyre that was marginally fresher than those used by some of the other riders in the top positions. 0.367 seconds separated Oliveira from Jorge Martin in second place, while Maverick Vinales was third despite crashing at turn one.

Francesco Bagnaia remained under-the-radar, as he had been on Friday, in fourth place, while Marc Marquez completed only six laps in fifth place.

Raul Fernandez was sixth, ahead of Enea Bastianini, Franco Morbidelli, Alex Marquez, and Pedro Acosta who completed the top 10.

PR

Maverick Vinales was fastest in MotoGP Practice in Germany, setting a 1:19.622 to end the first day at the Sachsenring fastest by over 0.3 seconds.

Jorge Martin was closest to Vinales but 0.340 seconds behind his compatriot, while Miguel Oliveira confirmed the competitiveness of the Aprilia RS-GP this weekend, finishing the day third and also in the 1:19s.

Alex Marquez was fourth, ahead of MotoGP Dutch TT winner Francesco Bagnaia who rounded out the top five. Enea Bastianini was sixth, ahead of Franco Morbidelli, Pedro Acosta, Fabio Di Giannantonio, and Brad Binder who completed the top 10.

There were several crashes throughout the session, the most significant for Marc Marquez who lost the front and high-sided at turn 11. He missed the final part of the session while undergoing checks in the circuit medical centre, and the 11-times German Grand Prix winner was therefore unable to do a late time attack, and ended up 13th and headed to Q1.

Fabio Di Giannantonio crashed at turn one a few minutes after Marquez’ crash, and immediately reached for his right collarbone. However, he returned to the pits, got on his second bike, and rode that into the top 10, evidencing his fitness.

2024 MotoGP German Grand Prix | Sachsenring | PR Result | Rd 9/20
Pos	Rider	Nat.	MotoGP Team	MotoGP Bike	Timing
1	Maverick Vinales	ESP	Aprilia Racing	Aprila RS-GP	1:19.622
2	Jorge Martin	ESP	Prima Pramac Racing	Ducati GP24	1:19.962
3	Miguel Oliveira	POR	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia RS-GP	1:19.984
4	Alex Marquez	ESP	Gresini Racing	Ducati GP23	1:20.029
5	Francesco Bagnaia	ITA	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati GP24	1:20.061
6	Enea Bastianini	ITA	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati GP24	1:20.085
7	Franco Morbidelli	ITA	Pramac Racing	Ducati GP24	1:20.086
8	Pedro Acosta	ESP	Red Bull GasGas Tech3	KTM RC16	1:20.142
9	Fabio Di Giannantonio	ITA	Pertamina Enduro VR46	Ducati GP23	1:20.280
10	Brad Binder	RSA	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM RC16	1:20.284
11	Jack Miller	AUS	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM RC16	1:20.285
12	Raul Fernandez	ESP	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia RS-GP	1:20.344
13	Marc Marquez	ESP	Gresini Racing	Ducati GP23	1:20.384
14	Fabio Quartararo	FRA	Monster Energy Yamaha	Yamaha YZR-M1	1:20.407
15	Augusto Fernandez	ESP	Red Bull GasGas Tech3	KTM RC16	1:20.613
16	Johann Zarco	FRA	Castrol Honda LCR	Honda RC213V	1:20.668
17	Luca Marini	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda RC213V	1:20.868
18	Takaaki Nakagami	JAP	Idemitsu Honda LCR	Honda RC213V	1:20.886
19	Marco Bezzecchi	ITA	Pertamina Enduro VR46	Ducati GP23	1:20.901
20	Remy Gardner	AUS	Monster Energy Yamaha	Yamaha YZR-M1	1:21.405
21	Stefan Bradl	GER	Team HRC	Honda RC213V	1:21.574
22	Joan Mir	ESP	Repsol Honda Team	Honda RC213V	1:21.847

FP1

Jorge Martin topped MotoGP FP1 at the Sachsenring, finishing 0.150 seconds ahead of Marc Marquez, although neither rider had a smooth run on Friday morning.

Marquez’ session began with an early bike swap for an apparent software error on the bike he began with. On his second machine, Marquez went fastest, although Martin beat him later before the #93 crashed.

Things were not smooth for Martin, either, with the airbag in his Alpinestars leathers deploying under braking for turn 12 at the bottom of the hill, and then a failure of his rear ride height device when he doing start practice at the end of the session.

Martin and Marquez were two of three riders to enter the 1:20s on Friday morning, along with Maverick Vinales. Only Marquez did it on a used (medium-compound) rear tyre, though, with Vinales taking a fresh medium at the end of the session, and Martin choosing a fresh soft-compound rear tyre for his final run.

Miguel Oliveira was fourth-fastest, ahead of the Tech3 GasGas duo of Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez who both set identical 1:21.151 lap times to finish fifth and sixth, respectively. Enea Bastianini was seventh, ahead of Alex Marquez, MotoGP Dutch TT winner Francesco Bagnaia, and Raul Fernandez who completed the top 10.

Aleix Espargaro came into the Sachsenring weekend injured after his Sprint crash in the Netherlands last week. The Aprilia rider managed only three laps and a best time of 1:32.902 before deciding to call it quits for the weekend. Ordinarily, Lorenzo Savadori would jump in to replace Espargaro, but the Italian is injured, too, having fractured vertebrae in his own Dutch Sprint crash.

2024 MotoGP German Grand Prix | Sachsenring | FP1 Result | Rd 9/20
Pos	Rider	Nat.	MotoGP Team	MotoGP Bike	Timing
1	Jorge Martin	ESP	Prima Pramac Racing	Ducati GP24	1:20.584
2	Marc Marquez	ESP	Gresini Racing	Ducati GP23	1:20.734
3	Maverick Vinales	ESP	Aprilia Racing	Aprila RS-GP	1:20.878
4	Miguel Oliveira	POR	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia RS-GP	1:21.106
5	Pedro Acosta	ESP	Red Bull GasGas Tech3	KTM RC16	1:21.151
6	Augusto Fernandez	ESP	Red Bull GasGas Tech3	KTM RC16	1:21.151
7	Enea Bastianini	ITA	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati GP24	1:21.211
8	Alex Marquez	ESP	Gresini Racing	Ducati GP23	1:21.258
9	Francesco Bagnaia	ITA	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati GP24	1:21.297
10	Raul Fernandez	ESP	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia RS-GP	1:21.410
11	Jack Miller	AUS	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM RC16	1:21.589
12	Marco Bezzecchi	ITA	Pertamina Enduro VR46	Ducati GP23	1:21.642
13	Franco Morbidelli	ITA	Pramac Racing	Ducati GP24	1:21.645
14	Fabio Quartararo	FRA	Monster Energy Yamaha	Yamaha YZR-M1	1:21.733
15	Brad Binder	RSA	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM RC16	1:21.737
16	Fabio Di Giannantonio	ITA	Pertamina Enduro VR46	Ducati GP23	1:21.740
17	Takaaki Nakagami	JAP	Idemitsu Honda LCR	Honda RC213V	1:22.127
18	Johann Zarco	FRA	Castrol Honda LCR	Honda RC213V	1:22.190
19	Luca Marini	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda RC213V	1:22.244
20	Stefan Bradl	GER	Team HRC	Honda RC213V	1:22.317
21	Joan Mir	ESP	Repsol Honda Team	Honda RC213V	1:22.527
22	Remy Gardner	AUS	Monster Energy Yamaha	Yamaha YZR-M1	1:22.969
23	Aleix Espargaro	ESP	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia RS-GP	1:32.902