Marco Bezzecchi battled the local wildlife and riders to win his third consecutive MotoGP Tissot Sprint at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit. The #72 rode with the extra baggage to extend his lead by over three seconds. It was back-to-back Tissot Sprint podium finishes for Raúl Fernández, making it an Aprilia one-two result. Rounding off the podium was Pedro Acosta, after he won a hard-fought battle for third. Read on for all the MotoGP Tissot Sprint results, as well as a brief summary of the thirteen-lap event at the Australian GP.
Unpredictable Start from a Surprise Front Row
We entered unchartered territory before the sprint race began. There were no Ducati riders on the front row for the first time in nearly a hundred race starts. Not to mention, three familiar faces were missing from the grid, allowing everyone to step up for points opportunities. Pole sitter, Fabio Quartararo, had selected the hard front tyre, while Bezzecchi and Jack Miller were on the medium front. But it was the soft rear tyre that was the universal choice. There was a brief brush with the local wildlife as we began the warm-up lap. Unfortunately, the remains of seagull feathers were stuck in the front of Bezzecchi’s machine. The second row of the grid had a better launch off the line as the lights went out. Both Miller and Quartararo fell behind as Fernández and Álex Márquez came to take their places. Brad Binder crashed on the second lap at Turn 2, adding to his Saturday misfortunes. Meanwhile, his teammate, Acosta, had already picked off Quartararo and began charging down Miller. The Aussie was doing what he could to catch Á.Márquez, who was quickly falling behind the Aprilia riders at the front end of the field.
Impressive Battles and Performance Concerns
As the gap increased to nearly two and a half seconds, the battle for third heated up between Márquez, Miller, and Acosta. At the first opportunity, Bezzecchi tried an attack on Fernández but was unsuccessful. The #72 lost a second off the lead for his mistake. The Italian managed to catch him once again before making a smoother overtake on the #25 at lap ten.
The battle for third continued for the remainder of the race, as did the one for the final point of the Tissot Sprint between Joan Mir, Luca Marini, and Pol Espargaró. In the end, it was Mir who missed out. Sadly, there would be no points for Fermín Aldeguer as he crashed out a lap and a half before the race ended. Francesco Bagnaia’s Australian GP weekend went from bad to worse as he had next to no pace to keep up, falling all the way to the bottom of the pack to join Michele Pirro, his Ducati Lenovo teammate in Márc Márquez’s place.
The Final Stretch to Secure A Podium
With the gap between first and third stretching to nearly five seconds, it came down to the final lap for Miller to push his Pramac Yamaha to the absolute limit to secure a podium on home soil. But with Acosta holding him off and Fabio Di Giannantonio attacking from behind, it wasn’t meant to be. He missed out on the podium by nearly sixty-six thousandths of a second. Another rider hoping for a better Sunday is Bagnaia. The #63 looked dejected as he walked back into the garage, with no one able to answer as to what went wrong.
Things to Remember
As a reminder, the Sunday MotoGP schedule has been pushed back by one hour due to predicted weather conditions. Also, both Bagnaia and Binder will start three places further down the grid in the feature race due to their incidents during the Qualifying sessions. Bezzecchi still has to serve a double long lap penalty, which means he will have a much harder time securing a podium result or even winning the Australian GP. There’s already been so many unpredictable factors at play, so what else does Phillip Island have in store?