Bagnaia’s Thailand MotoGP sprint compromised by “useless” Zarco/Marquez battle
The championship leader’s points lead has been cut from 27 to 18 by Pramac’s Jorge Martin, after the Spaniard romped to his seventh sprint win of the year as Bagnaia was 4.1 seconds adrift in seventh. Bagnaia qualified sixth and says he “missed the start”, which dropped him to ninth on the opening lap before being quickly cast adrift of the podium battle . He moved up to seventh at the end of the fourth tour after Alex Marquez and Zarco went wide at Turn 12 battling each other, but wasn’t then able to advance on this position despite closing to within a tenth of Marco Bezzecchi at the finish. Bagnaia says he felt strong on his bike, but the “useless” Zarco/Marquez battle cost him too much time and cut him off from the podium group ahead. “I missed the start a bit, and then I lost a lot of time with Zarco,” Bagnaia said. “And then with the battle with Johann and Alex Marquez, that in that moment was useless considering the amount of time we had lost...