Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) took the lead in the MotoGP World Championship by winning the German Grand Prix this Sunday, the ninth round of the speed motorcycle championship, in which Portuguese Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia) was sixth.
Oliveira, who started from second on the grid, crossed the line 10.481 seconds behind the winner, with Spaniard Marc Marquez (Ducati) second in 3.804 seconds and his brother Alex Marquez (Ducati) third in 4.334.
Not since the 1997 Imola Grand Prix have two brothers finished on the podium in the same race. At that time, Nobuatsu Aoki (Honda) and Takuma Aoki (Honda) were also second and third respectively.
“I would trade the win to be on the podium with my brother. It’s a huge joy,” said Marc Márquez, who had climbed from 13th on the grid to second place. In between, he was also involved in two touches with Italian-Brazilian Franco Morbidelli (Ducati), the second of which almost caused him to fall: “It was that touch that made him click, to turn on full attack mode,” he explained at the end of the race.
Today’s race was marked by the crash of Spaniard Jorge Martin (Ducati) while leading on the penultimate lap. Martin, the championship leader at the start of this race, started from pole, but was attacked at the first corner by Miguel Oliveira. The Portuguese reached the first corner first, but the Spaniard immediately responded, retaking the lead.
A position he would lose to Bagnaia, who started from third, on the following lap. However, he would take command of the race again on the seventh of the 30 laps of the race, with a roughly second advantage over the rest of the field.
He maintained his lead until lap 29, when he let the front wheel of his Ducati slip and ended up in the gravel.
The mistake meant he handed over control of the race and the championship to two-time world champion Francesco Bagnaia.
Miguel Oliveira, who had been losing ground to Ducati during the race, finished sixth as the best non-Ducati rider.
These results left Bagnaia 20 points behind in the championship and 10 points ahead of Martin. The Italian has 222, the Spaniard 212.
Miguel Oliveira retains 13th place but now has 51 points, five more than his Trackhouse teammate, Spaniard Raul Fernandez.
The championship is now on summer break. The competition will take place from August 2 to 4 and will include the British Grand Prix.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Dave Martin, and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. As a part of my work, I write for 24 News Reporters, covering mostly sports-related topics. With more than 5 years of experience as a journalist, I have written numerous articles on various topics to provide accurate information to readers.