and Marc Marquez hovered be-
hind. Binder initially had a hand
in, but was soon handed a Long
Lap
Penalty after tagging Alex
Marquez in the race's first turn,
dropping him back to 14th.
Soon the rain subsided. And
Bagnaia never fell below sec-
ond. By the fourth lap he was
back in front
and maintained
a steady gap to second from
there. Bezzecchi was by Martin
for second on lap five, and ably
gave chase to his compatriot.
But Bagnaia always had a few
tenths in hand and won by 0.3s.
Bezzecchi was second, admit
-
ting "Pecco was simply faster
today"
while Martin and the hard
charging Zarco made up the top
ergy Yamahas in 10th, a place
ahead of listless teammate
Fabio Quartararo.
Bagnaia's (131 points)
perfect weekend puts distance
between himself and Bezzecchi
(110) in the World Champion
-
ship. Martin (107) strengthened
his
third place with Binder (92)
losing ground in fourth.
For eight minutes it appeared
the racing gods weren't going to
play ball. Spits of rain peppered
the track in Arrabbiata 1 and 2
during the first four laps, raising
the possibility of the first ever
flag-to-flag Sprint race. Under
-
standably, Bagnaia rolled off,
allowing Martin
through, while
Marini, Bezzecchi, Miller, Zarco
ROUND 6 / JUNE 9-11, 2023
MUGELLO CIRCUIT / TUSCANY, ITALY
MOTOGP I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
P96
Friday after suffering significant
damage to his heel and shed
tears after securing ninth place in
the closing moments of P2. "I de-
cided to go out to do two hours,"
he explained. "It was super foggy
yesterday morning, so I said to
myself, 'Stay on the track, it's
safer.' And being on track, you are
more relaxed. And I was using the
telephone, like stupid. And I had a
big, big, big crash. My heel is de-
stroyed, I have a lot of pain. I have
a lot of blood inside. We remove
the blood for the second session,
I had infiltration [to drain the heel],
but it was not really working. I
have a lot of pain and I cannot use
the rear brake."
Briefly...
This is what
happened when
Marc Marquez tried
to chase the Ducatis.
He walked away
unharmed.
