Aleix Espargaró had a disappointing performance for himself in the MotoGP Australian Grand Prix, finishing eighth but over nine seconds behind the winner. The Aprilia rider had difficulties in unleashing the potential of the Aprilia RS-GP, a problem that has recurred for the third consecutive year.

When asked by the press for explanations regarding the issues in Phillip Island, the Spaniard mentioned that the core problem was excessive tyre spin, but he admitted that even the engineers couldn’t find justifications:

– What happened was that we had a lot of spin during the race and it caused me to be very slow in the last laps. But not even the engineers understand why we have this spin. Because this is the third consecutive year that we had this spin and we cannot improve it. So, if they don’t know, imagine me.

O conteúdo Aleix Espargaró and the reason of his struggles in Australia: ‘If the engineers don’t know, imagine me’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Prima Pramac won the MotoGP Australian GP with Johann Zarco and moved closer to clinching the team title, extending their lead in the championship.

With the French rider’s win and Jorge Martín’s fifth-place finish, Pramac scored 36 points at Phillip Island, bringing their total to 526. The team has now a gap of 85 points to Mooney VR46 Racing Team. However, anything can still happen since a maximum of 264 points can be awarded until the end of the season.

Ducati remains in third place as the top factory team, trailing the VR46 by 23 points and the leader by 108 points. The Red Bull KTM is in third place, with Aprilia in fourth, 50 and 63 points behind Ducati, respectively. GasGas Tech3 and Repsol Honda have not yet reached the 100-point mark, sitting in tenth and eleventh places.

Regarding the constructors’ championship, there are no major changes. Ducati, already crowned champions, now has a total of 552 points, compared to KTM’s 296. The Austrians have slightly widened their lead over Aprilia, which remains less than the value of a win in a main race. Yamaha has pulled away from Honda in the battle for fourth place, holding a four-point advantage.

Constructor and team championships:

O conteúdo Prima Pramac closes in on the team title once again aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Aleix Espargaró had a race to forget at the MotoGP Australian GP. He finished eighth, more than nine seconds behind the winner, to his great disappointment. However, he doesn’t place blame on the changed schedule.

Due to forecasts of bad weather on Sunday, the main race was rescheduled for Saturday, which meant that the riders didn’t have as many opportunities to prepare for it. There was no sprint race or warm-up before as usual.

Despite the difficulties on the Aprilia, Espargaró emphasized that there was plenty of preparation time, when asked if the schedule had an impact: ‘No, no, no excuses. We had plenty of time on Friday with very nice conditions, also the FP2. Nothing would change if we raced on Sunday’.

O conteúdo Aleix Espargaró rejects blaming the schedule change for the lack of competitiveness aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

When everything seemed to indicate that Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) could win the MotoGP Australian GP, it was his teammate Johann Zarco who secured the victory. In the battle, there was also Francesco Bagnaia, competing with a medium rear tire instead of the soft one that the Spanish rider unsuccessfully risked. Even so, he achieved the best result among those who made that choice.

In the Italian’s view, Martín was the only rider who stuck with the soft tire since the practice sessions, but he emphasized that race performance is different: ‘I think he was the only one with the possibility to race with the soft because yesterday he did many laps and he was quite fast. I think the maximum amount were 19 with stop and start. During all the race it’s always a different story and when I saw that the gap he took at the start wasn’t good enough to remain with a bit of margin in the last laps I was considering it’.

Focused on proper tire management, Bagnaia believes he adopted the right strategy and attributed merit to Zarco’s victory: ‘In a moment, during the race, I was just trying to be very careful with the rear tyre because I knew that was the correct choice and I knew that as I soon as Brad [Binder] and Fabio [Di Giannantonio] started to fight we would catch them easier, without pushing. So I think this was the correct choice, the correct strategy, and I just missed a bit to be close to Johann [Zarco] in the last lap. But he was in a better situation with the traction, he was working very well with the rear tyre, so he was deserving the victory more than me’.

O conteúdo ‘Jorge Martín was the only one with the possibility to race with the soft tyre’ – Francesco Bagnaia aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Before the sprint race was canceled, the warm-up for the MotoGP Australian GP took place in the rain, and Maverick Viñales was the fastest. The Aprilia rider had good sensations with his bike – so much so that he had something to figure out.

The Spanish rider explained that he had a level of traction in the rain that he didn’t have when it was dry at Phillip Island – something that didn’t happen for the first time in 2023:

– I was looking good, the other Aprilias not that much. But honestly I was with a really good feeling. It’s something we must understand, because on wet I found the traction I don’t have on dry. So we need to understand and we need to study because it’s important. In Japan, eventhough I crashed and I changed the bike, I was one the fastests on track without having the motivation to push. We need to understand, honestly I’m curiously to really go deep in the wet data because we have something we are missing on the dry. Honestly in the warm-up I felt really good.

O conteúdo ‘On wet I found the traction I don’t have on dry’ – Maverick Viñales aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Due to the bad weather, the MotoGP Australian GP was limited to the main race, but this didn’t stop significant changes in the championship standings.

Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) solidified his lead with a second-place finish at Phillip Island. He is now 27 points ahead of Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati), who was leading until the last lap but finished in fifth place. Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team/Ducati) is in third place, now 73 points behind the leader.

Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) is fourth, and with his first victory, Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac/Ducati) moved up to fifth, swapping places with Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia). Fabio Quartararo remains in tenth place as the best Yamaha rider, while Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) is in 16th place as the strongest rider for the “golden wing” manufacturer.

World Championship rider standings:

O conteúdo Francesco Bagnaia leaves Australia with a gap of more than one race win in the World Championship aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

After the premature interruption of the Moto2 World Championship race in Australia, there was some uncertainty about whether the MotoGP sprint race would take place. The decision was to cancel it due to the strong wind.

Mike Webb, the race director of MotoGP, explained that the riders were consulted before making the decision, as were the team principals: ‘We had a meeting with all the the team principals shortly before we made the decision, with all the team principals. Loris [Capirossi, safety advisor] and Carlos [Ezpeleta, Dorna Sports chief sporting officer] have been talking to the riders, and Tomé [Alfonso, FIM safety office] talking to the MotoGP riders in their boxes to get their firsthand opinions. There is, as you can imagine, a big range of opinions of the riders, depending on who they are, their own circunstances, whatever… so, a huge range’.

According to the British rider, attempting to start the race with worse conditions than those at the time of the interruption of the Moto2 race was not under consideration: ‘Therefore, we spoke to the teams to say: «These are our options, this is the situation as it is at the moment». But to even start again, to even do a sighting lap and try to run a race when the weather condition is measurably worse than it was when we showed the red flag… Sorry, that’s not an option, we couldn’t do it’.

O conteúdo ‘Try to run a rece when the weather was worse than when we showed the red flag wasn’t an option’ – Mike Webb aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Unlike several other riders, Francesco Bagnaia prefers to work for the race during practice rather than for the qualifying. This approach leaves him in a good position for the race but not as much for qualifying and timed practice. He has failed to qualify directly for the Q2 on two consecutive occasions.

The defending champion from Ducati admitted he is unsure if he should keep this approach: ‘I don’t know if it is good to continue like this, but my strategy during the session is quite different compared with all the others. And it helps me to be very prepared for the race every time, but not prepared to be in the first positions when it counts. This weekend, for example, when we put the soft tyre I didn’t try this amount of the grip. The difference between medium and soft on the left side of the tyre was huge and I was in trouble with it. We finished the work Saturday morning, luckly, and we were prepared for the race’.

In the following GPs, Bagnaia might consider a change, as he said: ‘Maybe we have to start thinking in another way and be more prepared also for the time attack. Because now we move on to circuits where it is very important to be fast’.

O conteúdo Francesco Bagnaia admitts a different approach: ‘Maybe we have to think in another way’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Ducati had some reasons to smile about in this Australian GP, in a day of debuts for two riders aboard a Desmosedici: Johann Zarco won for the first time in MotoGP, and Fabio Di Giannantonio got his first podium in the class.

General Manager Ducati Corse at Ducati Motor Holding, Dall’Igna came to social media to make a few comments on the australian day, regarding the first day: ‘A strange race, concentrated as it was in the last two laps and heavily conditioned by tyre consumption. An exciting finale that ends with a thrilling all-Ducati podium order of arrival’.

He then didn’t miss the chance to praise Zarco’s first win ever in MotoGP, a win that came after the french, who has seven years in the class, got to reach the first position on the last lap of the main race: ‘We applaud Zarco’s first win in MotoGP, a well-deserved victory, the result of an exemplary conduct that showed all his talent. Congratulations to Pramac, once again proving their excellent team work and the skill of their riders’.

He extended such words towards DiGia: ‘The same applies to Team Gresini, whose Di Giannantonio managed to mount the podium for the first time in the top class, a rider that proved battle-hardened and determined as never before, protagonist among top performers in all recent races’.

O conteúdo Gigi Dall’Igna praised Zarco and Di Giannantonio’s results in Phillip Island in ‘a strange race’ where tyre consumption was crucial aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

The strong wind that led to the cancellation of the Australian MotoGP Grand Prix sprint race is a constant risk at this time of year at Phillip Island, which suggests the idea of rescheduling it for the local summer season.

Maverick Viñales (Aprilia) was asked about this solution, and the Spanish rider from Aprilia believes it could be beneficial but doesn’t see it as a viable option:

– Maybe, I don’t know. But there are always tricky conditions in this part of the year, but I think logistically it’s impossible for them to move to the initial part of the year.

O conteúdo ‘It’s impossible for the Australian GP to move for the initial part of the year’ – Maverick Viñales aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.