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/1528619
Miller was clinging on to what could have been his first podium since Spain last year, but there was no stopping Acosta, who dispensed of Binder and did the same to Miller with two laps re- maining. A frustrated Miller then saw Di Giannantonio push past for fourth on the last lap, and the Aussie had to settle for fifth. Bagnaia crossed the line to seal a ninth win of the season and reduce Martin's title gap to 17 points. Martin was a glad second place, the Spaniard suffering mul- tiple front-end losses but no crash as he finished ahead of Acosta. "This morning, after the warmup, I wasn't happy," Bagnaia said. "I wasn't worried, though, because I knew we had the potential to do well, but we had to fix something in terms of bike behavior under braking: we man- aged to do so, and I felt better straight away. When Jorge tried to pull away early on, I chose to wait a couple of laps, as I Martin then made his only mistake of the race, running wide at turn three and allowing both Bagnaia and Marc Marquez through on lap five. Bagnaia thus took over at the front and had to push like never before for the next 21 laps as Marc Marquez made repeated attempts for the race lead, tak- ing the place a couple of times at the final corner but running wide each time. Italian Bagnaia was given a reprieve when Marquez was unable to save a front-end slide that resulted in him going down on lap 14, a crash that crucially gave five points back to Martin in the title chase. He would remount for 12th at the flag. As Bagnaia pushed to main- tain his lead, Pedro Acosta was charging through the field, mov- ing ahead of Fabio Di Giannanto- nio and closing in on fellow KTM riders Brad Binder and Jack Miller. VOLUME ISSUE OCTOBER , P71 'PECCO NEEDS TO TAKE RISKS' The mood was somber in Pecco Bagnaia's camp on Saturday afternoon after he fell short in a crucial fight with title rival Jorge Martin, which extended the Span- iard's advantage to 22 points. It meant Martin can now afford to finish each of the remaining Sprint and feature races in second and still take the crown. Marc Marquez believes such a situation means the reigning World Champion must start taking risks. "Tomorrow [Sunday] we will see a nice fight against Bagnaia-Martin, because they are both riding super-fast. And Bagnaia needs to take risks, because if he wants to have some chance in Valencia, tomorrow he needs to finish in front of Martin." TOTAL DUCATI DOMINATION History was made on Saturday. A sole manufacturer filled the top eight positions of a premier class race for the first time since Barce- lona, 1996, as Ducati laid waste to its rivals in the Sprint race. Jack Miller—who attempted to follow Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio unsuccessfully—felt the Chang International Circuit's layout was responsible. "Three massive straights. Able to point and shoot. The bikes are rocket ships but the way they accelerate is pretty impressive." ACOSTA: A TOP SIX IS OKAY Pedro Acosta crashed out of the podium fight once again on Saturday, which extended his non-score record in the 2024 Briefly... Trackhouse Racing went decidedly off track in Sunday's MotoGP with crashes for both Raul Fernandez and Lorenzo Savadori. To be fair, they were far from the only ones.