Francesco Bagnaia 0.005s ahead of Martin in Japanese MotoGP warm-up

Title rivals evenly matc🎉hed in Sunday warm-up at Motegi.

Francesco Bagnaia, 2024 Japanese MotoGP
Francesco Bagnaia, 2024 Japanese MotoGP

MotoGP title rivals 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Francesco Bagnaia and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Jorge Martin were s🌳eparated by just 0.005s during morning warm-up for the Japanese Grand Prix at꧅ Motegi.

After overcast conditions and raindrops൩ during Friday and▨ Saturday, Sunday dawned dry and sunny.

Sprint winner Bagnaia, who has cut Martin’s advantage to 15 points, exchanged the top spot with the Prama𒁏c rider four times during the ten-minute session.

While Bagnaia took his fifth Sprint win of the season after Pedro Acosta fell from the lead, Martin rode to fourth after a quali🌸fying crash left him on the fourth row of the grid.

"I think we are ready for a nice battle🍃 today," Martin said.

Martin♔ (like M൩arc Marquez) will again need to make big progress through the order, but at least have twice the race distance to do it in - as well as, probably, a different rear tyre. 

The soft rear was used by all riders in the Sprint, but th🐼e medium rear is advised for the grand prix. All riders except wild-card Remy Gardner duly ran the hard front and medium🔯 rear tyres in warm-up. 

But speaking afterwards, 🐽some riders suggested they could still gamble on the soft rear...

Sprint runner-up Enea Bastianini, KTM’s pole qualifier Acosta and Saturday podium finisher Marquez completed𝓰 a warm-up top five - featuring the top five riders in the world championship - covered by just 0.258s.

Marquez must star🐬t ninth on the grid after losing pole p🧸osition due to a track limits penalty.

Franco Morb꧂idelli, Marco Bezzecchi, Fabio di Giannantonio plus LCR Honda team-mates Johann Zarco and Takaak💛i Nakagami - who collided in the race – formed the remainder of the warm-up top ten.

Fab𓄧io Quartararo was again the leading Yamaha rider, in eleventh, with front row qualifier Maverick Vina🍌les in twelfth.

The Aprilia rider, who was unable to brake hard enough to disengage his holeshot device at turn one 🔯of the Sprint, make some bike changes for warm-up that didn’t appear to pay off.

Team-mate Aleix Espargaro was only 17th in warm-up෴, but still within one-second of Bagnaia.

This afternoon’s 24 lap race, the last of the opening flyaway triple-header, starts at 2pm local time (6am UK).
 

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