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/1517996
one at turn one on lap 12, but the rear of the GasGas bucked, weaved around, and refused to settle, thus sending the Span- iard wide, allowing Bagnaia back through. Acosta made sure his second attempt was for good on lap 21, scything past at turn three. Although Bagnaia tried to fight it, Acosta held the place and im - mediately gapped Bagnaia, who then fell into Marquez's clutches. With three laps to go, one of the clutch moments of the race occurred as Marquez dove for the apex at turn five, briefly taking fourth from Bagnaia. The Italian, however, had none of it and immediately cut to the inside. It all went wrong as he collected Marquez's left shoul - ning away with the race. Bagnaia had worked his way past Marquez to regain fourth, but behind the eight-time World Champion Marquez was a trio of KTM/GasGas machines headed by Brad Binder with Miller and Pedro Acosta hot on his heels. The rookie Acosta made light work of Miller on lap four; three laps later, he was past the Red Bull KTM team leader, and he set his sights on Marquez. Acosta was sublime to watch, backing the GasGas RC16 in like a supermoto and clawing back chunks of time on Marquez, eventually working his way past at turn one on lap eight. Next on the hit list was Ba - gnaia. Acosta made the same pass as Marquez on the number "I was able to manage the rear tire a bit in the first few laps and the small gap. "Then, as soon as I started to push, I saw that the gap was al - ways the same. But I knew that I had some margin to slowly make the gap bigger and bigger. At seventh-tenths, I was a bit more relaxed, and I knew that it was a nice gap to have until the end." The drama was further be - hind, and there was plenty of it. Vinales, Bastianini, Marquez and Bagnaia gave chase, with Marquez being his usual ag- gressive self as he snatched fourth place off Bagnaia halfway around the first lap. Martin's teammate, Franco Morbidelli, didn't last a lap, crashing out as Martin was run - ROUND 2 / MARCH 22-24, 2024 ALGARVE INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT / PORTIMAO, PORTUGAL MOTOGP I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP P88 Aaron Canet banished the ghosts of second place by finally taking a Moto2 race win ahead of Joe Roberts (16) and Manuel Gonzalez (18).