Jorge Martin bounces back from his last outing at Jerez to secure the Tissot Sprint Race win at Le Mans. The win revived his “King of the Sprint” status having claimed the majority of Sprint race wins since its inception into the MotoGP race weekend format. The win didn’t come easy thought with Maverick Viñales and Marc Marquez giving Martin a run for his money. After breaking the lap record in qualifying and bouncing back from a late crash Martin charged with a full head of steam to finish almost 2.5 seconds ahead of Marc Marquez.
Marquez Continues to Improve
Marquez appears to be coming alive this season as he gets more and more acclimated with his Ducati with Gresini Racing. What seemingly felt like an outlandish idea. Marquez actually has the pace to be a title contender come the end of the 2024 season. He said, “That was literally the perfect start; I did well and was also lucky as I found the right space to dive in and kept the right speed. I got almost sandwiched between Bagnaia and Bastianini, but I got out of it with good speed. The thing I’m happy the most for was the pace we found in the 10-11 laps since I moved out to fourth. Tomorrow it’s going to be very challenging, and you never know how it’s going to end should it rain. Still, I’ll sleep soundly tonight.”
Last years champion Francesco Bagnaia lost out on valuable points after retiring from the sprint. The was an issue with Bagnaia’s bike that saw him drop form a comfortable P2 to P15 after a few corners. Bagnaia said, “Unfortunately these things can happen, but it surely wasn’t easy. Already from the warmup lap I felt something was different and I felt like it was difficult to do anything. The team is at work to understand what happened, but we’ll surely be good tomorrow and ready to do well. We’ve already shown we can be competitive this weekend and our pace is top-three worthy. We’re aware of our potential and we know that with a good start and the right feeling, we can battle for the win.”
Maverick Vinales finished third to keep himself in the points battle at the top of the drivers championship. Acosta was unable to keep his early season success streak alive having to settle for P6. The Frenchman Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) and Johann Zarco (CASTROL Honda LCR) had uneventful races finishing P10 and P13 respectively.
Full MotoGP Sprint Race Results