Pecco Bagnaia imposed the law of the champion at the premiere of the MotoGP World Championship in Qatar. The one from Turin, starting from the second row of the Lusail circuit, surpassed his great rival, Jorge Martín, third, the reborn Marc Márquez, fourth, and the great rookie, Pedro Acosta, ninth.
From pole position, Jorge Martín could not maintain the pole position. He initially held off Brad Binder, but was unable to stop a hot-headed Pecco Bagnaia, who took the lead into the second corner at Lusail. Marc Márquez, aggressive, went from 6th to 4th, behind Binder, while Aleix Espargaró dropped from second place on the grid to ninth in a disastrous start.
Bagnaia was pulling hard, ahead of Binder and Martín, with Márquez fourth, Bastianini, Alex Márquez and a great Pedro Acosta who placed seventh in his debut in a MotoGP race. The Murcian, the “cool fly” that he wanted to be in his debut in the premier class, overtook the Italian to place sixth.
Hostilities opened as soon as Martín made his move. The Madrid native took second position from Binder on the fifth lap to follow Bagnaia closely, while Acosta was encouraged to overtake Àlex Márquez and take fifth place, behind Marc. A high-profile duel, the one chosen against the multiple champion. The future against the past.
While the two prodigies, the Catalan and the Murcian, were fighting for fourth place, it was Binder who took a step forward by overtaking Martín in second position and assuming the role of pursuer of Bagnaia (v. 8), who was pulling ahead with force.
At the front of the race, Bagnaia proved to be a Sunday driver by opening a gap of 1 second over Binder and Martín.
The big moment of the race came on lap 12 when Pedro Acosta easily overtook Marc Márquez to take fourth position. He had only Martín ahead of him to take the podium and 10 laps ahead.
Márquez regained fourth place when Acosta went wide on lap 15. The man from Cervera took advantage of the Murcian’s mistake to follow Jorge Martín in search of the podium. It was then that Acosta, physically exhausted, lowered his performance and fell prey to Àlex Márquez and Bastianini, who sent him to seventh place.
Ahead, with 5 laps remaining, Bagnaia was already a second ahead of Binder and Martín. The Italian did not allow himself to be surprised, as with his superior pace he took the first victory of the season, ahead of the South African and the Madrid native.
“We already knew our potential. The race was completely different from the Sprint. We took a step forward with the bike,” commented Pecco Bagnaia.