Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1517309
per lap than last year's race, a frankly astonishing leap forward in the three months and 21 days since the last visit here. Team Manager Davide Tardozzi was right when he said, "He deserves the number one on the fairing." The key to Bagnaia's 19th premier class victory came early on. The Italian witnessed first - hand in the Sprint the implica- tions of sitting in another bike's slipstream as he suffered first from a rising front-tire pressure. By the end, he was also com- plaining of similar rear-chatter issues that are of concern to ri- val Jorge Martin after a subdued fourth place. Martin got the jump from Binder into turn one. Yet Bag - naia spelled his intentions out from the off, passing the South African at turn two before bar- reling under Martin two corners later. Soon, he had edged out half a second on his pursuers as he repeatedly lapped in the mid- 1:52s. The die was cast. From best for Sunday. Despite qualify - ing a subdued fifth, he left his rivals trailing in the feature race from the opening exchanges. No one had an answer here. "We worked in silence," he grinned soon after, referencing his less- than fancied prerace status. His pace throughout was ferocious, with the fastest lap times, some eight-tenths of a second quicker ROUND 1 / MARCH 8-10, 2024 LUSAIL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT / LUSAIL, QATAR MOTOGP I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP P96 had a small issue which limited us in the race. I was able to understand a lot of things during the race, which is very important, especially when I realized Miller was behind. I let him pass to study a little bit of what he was doing. I think this will help us to understand more and more, to take some positives. We need time to keep trying things and getting more comfortable." MYOWNRACE 31 PEDRO ACOSTA 9TH MOTOGP GasGas Factory racer Pedro Acosta had a stellar debut in MotoGP. "I'll remember this race!" Acosta said. "From the start to the first overtakes to running with the big boys! It was super-nice. I think we need to be super-happy with the whole week- end because it was a dream from the beginning until the end. We had a fight with a few riders, and it was nice to do that with confidence and to feel the bike working really good. We have to keep working because we are on the way." Fabio Quartararo (20) was aboard the top-finishing Japanese bike in 11th. Marc Marquez was impressive in his first race on the Ducati.