The Australian driver won a race that his colleague Bagnaia, who was competing against Quartararo for the championship, crashed during.
The air is breathable for Fabio Quartararo. The world champion finished eighth in the Japanese Grand Prix, limiting the damage done to his title defense and benefitting from the crash of his primary adversary, Francesco Bagnaia. Therefore, it would be a good operation for the Yamaha rider in the championship if he finished very far behind in Japan. There are still four races left in the season.
If Espargaro, who was 17 points behind Quartararo heading into the Japanese round, instantly buried his chances of taking the championship lead because of a technical problem on his Aprilia, then Bagnaia, who was in the fight with Quartararo for eighth place, has him fell… on the very last lap. The Frenchman currently has 219 points overall, which is 18 more than Bagnaia, who finished in second place with 201 points, and 25 more than the Spaniard Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), who came in 16th place.
This past Sunday, the Australian Jack Miller (riding for Ducati) was victorious on the Motegi track, taking first place. The South African Brad Binder, who will be Miller’s teammate at KTM for the upcoming season, and the Spanish rider Jorge Martin (Ducati-Pramac) round out the top three.
Get the fourth spot.
Marc Marquez, who had not competed since the previous week due to an injury, finished in fourth place in the race, which took place after the rain stopped falling during the qualifying session the day before. Although he started the race in the first place, the six-time world champion was unable to maintain control of the race from the very beginning. Since his return to Aragon the previous weekend, where he was forced to retire following a collision with Quartararo, he has finished his maiden race in Japan, which took place in Japan.
Johann Zarco (Ducati-Pramac), the other Frenchman on the grid, started the race in second place but ended up finishing 11th. This was Zarco’s 100th race in the MotoGP series. In Moto2, the Japanese rider Ai Ogura (Honda) picked up his third victory of the season and is now only two points behind the leader of the general standings, the Spaniard Augusto Fernandez, who finished in second place on Sunday.
In Guevara (Gasgas), the current leader of the Moto3 championship in Spain, won the race after finishing more than half a second ahead of the Italian Dennis Foggia. Guevara started the race in the ninth position (Leopard). Guevara now leads his teammate Sergio Garcia, who finished fourth in the race in Japan, in the overall standings as a result of this triumph, which was Guevara’s second consecutive victory following the GP of Aragon.