immediately opened a gap at the
front. Martin, meanwhile, dropped
all the way to eighth.
The Aprilia rider quickly set
about repairing the damage.
Martin passed Brad Binder
(Red Bull KTM Factory Racing),
Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati
Lenovo Team), Ai Ogura (Track-
house MotoGP Team) and Alex
Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing
MotoGP) in quick succession to
reach fourth by lap five.
He then overtook Bezzec-
chi for third at turn one on lap
seven before making an aggres-
sive but clean pass on Marc
Marquez one lap later to take
second. With Acosta still 2.8
seconds ahead, Martin ap-
peared destined for second until
the KTM rider threw away an
almost certain victory.
Acosta came out of the first
turn confident of his position
and briefly looked at his dash to
check his fuel and laps remain-
ing. He arrived at turn 2a too hot
and lost the front of his KTM,
his victory hopes shattering and
handing Martin an unexpected
MotoGP Sprint
Martin initially grabbed the hole-
shot from the front row but lost out
to Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo
Team) at turn 2a after running
wide. The reigning World Cham-
pion then moved ahead of Acosta
at turn three, before the KTM rider
VOLUME 63 ISSUE 38 SEPTEMBER 22, 2026 P93
30 TAKAAKI NAKAGAMI
15TH/13TH MOTOGP
"A great result today—I am of course
really happy with how we have
worked as a team this weekend,"
Nakagami said. "In the Sprint we got
some good information for today and
made some changes, especially on
the electronics side, to help us man-
age. Twenty-eight laps were really
tough with the direction that we went,
I had to be super precise, but I knew
that in the second half of the race I
would have more tire. I wasn't expect-
ing to finish ahead of some of the rid-
ers I did, so we have to be pleased."
43 JACK MILLER
20TH/21ST MOTOGP
"It's honestly a pretty frustrating one,
and I'm disappointed with how the race
went," Miller said. "I was able to hang
in there reasonably well in the first part
of the race, but from around lap 13 or
14 the tire performance really started
to drop and I struggled a lot with the
rear. Once that happened, there was
not much I could do. I was trying to pick
the bike up and manage the accelera-
tion, but I was still getting a lot of spin
and losing time. It became more about
trying to get the bike to the finish than
fighting for the positions we wanted."
MYOWNRACE
Polesitter Jorge Martin (89) was
pushed wide at turn 2a on the
opening lap of the Sprint and dropped
to eighth, but a charge through the
field and Acosta's mistake netted the
championship leader P1.
Martin led early, but
the Shark, Pedro
Acosta, was hunting
him down and soon
took the lead.
