Marini fancied his chances
for fourth and pushed past
Marquez with three laps to go,
holding off the eight-time world
champion to the flag.
However, out front, no one
could hold a candle to Jorge
Martin, who cruised over the
line for what looked like an easy
Sprint Race win, 1.8 seconds up
on Binder and 2.6 seconds from
Bagnaia. Marini was 3.4 sec
-
onds off and Marquez a tenth
of a second behind in fifth from
Zarco, with Bezzecchi, Espar
-
garo, Maverick Vinales (Aprilia
Racing) and Takaaki Nakagami
(Idemitsu LCR Honda) rounding
out the top 10.
Sunday
Grand Prix
The Sprint race was a prequel to
the madness of Sunday, and this
time it was Marquez who got
the jump from the middle of the
VOLUME ISSUE MAY , P83
FIM STEWARDS
MEET RIDERS
Several riders were left confused
after the Sprint race, when tough
moves by Brad Binder on Luca
Marini, and Marc Marquez on
Pecco Bagnaia went unpunished.
The reason for confusion? When
FIM Stewards met the riders in
Friday evening's Safety Com-
mission, they stated they would
punish moves similar to what
Bagnaia put on Jack Miller in the
Spanish Grand Prix, where there
was minimum contact. "At the
end of all the Safety Commis-
sion," explained Luca Marini, "I
asked, 'so now the line is, if there
is a contact and a rider hit the
other rider and gain the posi-
tion, disturb and cause a conse-
quence to the other rider, there
is the drop one position?' They
say, yes." But Marc Marquez was
pleased there were no further
penalties. "They started to speak
about putting more different
penalizations, different warnings.
If we have more penalizations,
we will speak more and more and
more about this. This is MotoGP,
sometimes you have small con-
tacts."
THE 1000TH GP
Le Mans hosted the 1000th
Grand Prix in history. The Grand
Prix World Championship is
now in its 75th year and is a far
cry from its initial iteration when
a six-round series took place
from June to early September in
1949. In the time since, a total
of 393 riders have won at least
one Grand Prix race, while 125
have clinched at least one world
championship. Honda is the most
Briefly...
The Alex Marquez/
Luca Marini crash was
a nasty one.
