since Mick Doohan at Shah Alam in
Malaysia way back in 1997. His sprint
and feature race tally gives him a
perfect 37 points from Vinales' 25 and
Bezzecchi's 16. Zarco and Miller round
out the top five with 15 points each.
The next round is this weekend as
the series moves to the Termas de Río
Hondo venue in Argentina.
Moto2
Pedro Acosta (Kalex) started the 2023
season in fine style, holding off seri-
ous pressure from Aron Canet (Kalex)
to
take the first Moto2 win of the year.
Canet was right with the number 37
until the last few laps, but the former
Moto3 World Champion eventually
eked out a small advantage that was
enough to get him to the flag. Tony
ROUND 1 / MARCH 24-26, 2023
ALGARVE INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT / PORTIMAO, PORTUGAL
MOTOGP I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
P72
the KTM on entry with front
feeling. The bike gives me a
great sense of confidence in
the front, lap by lap, corner by
corner, because you get an
amazing reading off the tire."
SPRINT BACKLASH
The inaugural MotoGP sprint
race was 12 laps of thrilling ac-
tion. But it was also frantic and
certainly in the early stages,
scary. Luca Marini wiped out
Enea Bastianini on the second
lap, and Joan Mir crashed into
Fabio Quartararo. The French-
man was one of many voices
that felt the level of aggres-
sion was too much and this
new format will invite similar
riding all year long. "Not at all,"
came Quartararo's response
when asked if he liked the
new format. "And there will be
a big accident. I mean, it's a
jungle. We are not in cars. In
the future there will be many
more crashes." Miguel Oliveira
surmised it well. "It's obvious
when you reduce the number
of laps and with it being hard to
overtake then you try to over-
take as much as you can in the
first few laps. That carries risk
and whoever is on the outside
suffers more!"
Briefly...
The "Sunday Man" Brad
Binder leads Alex Marquez
and Johann Zarco.
