Bagnaia settles for second in the German GP Sprint at the Sachsenring. Top ten for Bastianini (tenth)
- Jorge Martin (Pramac Racing) powers to victory in the seventh Sprint of the 2023 MotoGP season
After the first five laps of all-out action between Francesco Bagnaia, Jorge Martin and Jack Miller, the Ducati Lenovo Team rider opted to settle for the runner-up slot and the 9 points as his brand-mate proved to have a superior pace in the remainder of the 15-lap Sprint.
Starting from pole position – the fifteenth of his career and his third in a row – Bagnaia looked as if he had the pace to fight for the win against the Spaniard and the Australian, but once Martin got past both the leaders and pulled away, the Italian concentrated on holding off Miller for second place.
Teammate Enea Bastianini got a good start from the fourth row of the grid in eleventh position, but lost a bit of time in the second part of the race and could only finish tenth after getting the better of Marc Marquez.
Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 2nd
“I’m satisfied with the result but sincerely today I didn’t have the pace like Jorge, who was stronger than me. It wasn’t a surprise because he was strong all weekend so I was expecting him to be competitive. When I saw that it was difficult to close the gap, I just tried to control it from behind. The fight in the early laps was fun; I enjoyed it with Jack and enjoyed it with Jorge. I did a little mistake in corner 1 but apart from that, I’m happy because finishing second is always a good result and the performance was there. For sure to watch it must have been fun. Let’s continue like this because tomorrow will be an important race and I have to improve in sector 2 where I am losing a bit of time.”
Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 10th
“The race went quite well, I got away from the grid quite strong but then I touched with Aleix at the start and lost a bit of time. Then I was coming up the field well, I had a good pace up to there but unfortunately after a few laps, I had a problem with the rear and I wasn’t able to do more. Too bad because I could have had a good race, tomorrow is another day, let’s try to do better. I’m starting to feel quite fit again, I have to say that here the pain was really minimal, what I have left to recover, certainly for the strength, that will take some time. I think I’m at a good level now, so let’s hope it’s all downhill from here on.”
The Ducati Lenovo Team riders will line up for tomorrow’s 30-lap German Grand Prix, round 7 of the MotoGP World Championship, at 2pm, with the ten-minute morning warm-up scheduled for 9.45am.
