A second clean sweep in the past three MotoGP rounds for Jorge Martin at Motegi has left the world championship finely poised with six rounds remaining, with Francesco Bagnaia's once comfortable advantage now a distant memory. As Marc Marquez joined the title protagonists on the podium to give Honda a boost, here's what we learned from the Japanese GP
's championship lead in India after the factory Ducati rider crashed out of the grand prix, Martin twisted the knife in Japan.
Martin noted that he"wouldn't have won" the grand prix had he been thinking about the championship. But the progress he has made, capitalising on Bagnaia's recent misfortunes, means he is now currently the favourite whether he likes it or not. Bagnaia bounced back from his India disappointment with a brace of seconds to limit the damage Martin inflicted in the best way he could. Crucially, he began the weekend having cured the braking woes which plagued him in recent rounds.
Martin is riding high and using that to fuel him, but Bagnaia's experience will come to the fore soon enough. emerged as Jorge Martin's closest rival in dry conditions during the Saturday sprint aboard armed with the carbon fibre chassis that test riderin Friday practice , and the South African came through from fifth on the grid to finish a strong second in the sprint, his best result since August's Austrian GP.
Whether this is a change that will yield results,"time will tell" was Marc Marquez's response. If this was a move to try to convince him to stay, replacing one Japanese engineer with another isn't likely to tick that box for the eight-time world champion. Ahead of the weekend, Marquez – who scored his first Sunday podium since Australia last year in Japan – said he was"quite sure" of his future plans.
Yamaha was probably always going to struggle at Motegi given the stop-start track layout, but even then it was a shock to see Fabio Quartararo and"This is our potential now," he conceded."We have no turning, no power, no downforce, nothing." "I don't understand what's going on; the problems of the past are coming back," he said."I can't do any more, and this would take away the enthusiasm and the desire from anyone. Right now I would choose to go home."
Bezzecchi was lucky to get away with a crash in qualifying that left him scrambling to get back to the pits, qualifying fourth on his second bike. But, after a poor start, he lost any chance of fighting his fellow Ducati title contenders in the sprint when he ran wide at the Turn 11 right-hander trying to deprive Marquez of fifth, which condemned him to an eventual sixth-place finish.
The upshot is that Bezzecchi now trails Bagnaia by 54 points with six weekends left. Bezzecchi's verdict on the title situation was that"I'm not definitely out of it" but the reality is that, with Martin looking so strong now and Bagnaia seemingly over his troubles, he is probably relying on further misfortune striking one of, if not both, his adversaries.
Fernandez questioned why riders so often get off scot-free for triggering contact - much as Bezzecchi did at Turn 1 - while something so innocuous was punished so harshly.
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