MotoGP Thailand results, Sprint - Clearing off, closing in

This weekend, MotoGP holds the final round of its penultimate triple header of 2023 at the Buriram International Circuit in Thailand. This page will be updated with MotoGP Thailand results throughout the weekend.

Sprint

Jorge Martin started from what is becoming his customary place on pole position for the MotoGP Sprint in Thailand. From there, he dominated, using his speed to get away early and control the race to the finish.

From pole position, Jorge Martin made an excellent start, holding a comfortable lead into turn one and taking the holeshot ahead of Luca Marini and Aleix Espargaro.

Battling between Marini and Espargaro meant Martin led by over half-a-second by the end of lap one. Further back, Francesco Bagnaia dropped from sixth on the grid to ninth by the end of the first lap.

Martin’s lead was up to almost one second by the end of the second lap, while Brad Binder was now pressuring Marini for second place having already dispatched Espargaro.

Bagnaia wasn’t able to make progress until the beginning of lap five, when Johann Zarco and Alex Marquez started to battle, and opened the door for the current World Championship leader. Unfortunately for the Italian, he was, by now, 1.5 seconds behind the battle for fifth place ahead of him.

Binder finally broke Marini’s resolve at the end of lap seven, but Martin was 1.6 seconds clear in front. 

The #33 had looked much faster than Marini when he was behind, but was unable to break away having made the pass, allowing Marini to stay in contention for second.

Martin’s lead had been approaching two seconds at its largest, but he let it draw in to one second by the end. The 12 points for the win were crucial, as they meant, with Bagnaia finishing only seventh, that the gap at the top of the championship is reduced to 18 points.

Binder was able to hold of the retaliation of Marini for second place, while the late-braking Italian took third.

Marc Marquez was sixth for most of the race, but passed Marco Bezzecchi for fifth when the #72 started to fade in the closing stages, and then defeated Aleix Espargaro on the final lap after the Aprilia rider made a mistake.

Espargaro himself was the top Aprilia by some margin. Compared to his sixth place, the next best RS-GP was Raul Fernandez down in 14th.

Bezzecchi, meanwhile, fended off Bagnaia on the final lap to secure sixth place, while Bagnaia took a lowly seventh. Alex Marquez (8th), Johann Zarco (9th), and Jack Miller (10th) rounded out the top 10.

Full MotoGP results from the Thailand Sprint are below.

2023 MotoGP Thailand Results | Qualifying

Qualifying

MotoGP qualifying Buriram was once again won by Jorge Martin, who took yet another pole position, while his title rival Francesco Bagnaia failed to make the front row.

Q1 is an important session in any MotoGP weekend, but in Buriram it is especially important. While there are places to overtake in at the Thai track, spending any time at all behind another bike in the kind of ambient temperatures Buriram tends to throw up generates a huge amount of heat in the front brake, and both heat and pressure in the front tyre. Therefore, it was important for Alex and Marc Marquez to both find their respective ways through to Q2.

Marc Marquez almost caused one of the most dramatic moments of qualifying in Q2, when he nearly cleaned out points leader Francesco Bagnaia, but in the end he was able to avoid the contact. 

Marquez was not Bagnaia’s biggest problem, though. As usual, that came in the shape of Jorge Martin. While Bagnaia could only qualify sixth, at the back of the second row, Martin qualified on pole.

Martin’s time of a 1:29.743 put him 0.087 seconds clear of Luca Marini. That is obviously a small gap, but it is also true that practice saw the field covered by little over a second, and so anything approaching one-tenth is not an insignificant margin at Buriram.

Nonetheless, Marini’s second place improved on his qualifying of last year (9th) by seven places. The Italian has two podium finishes in Thailand in the Moto2 class, the hard-braking layout suiting Marini’s style. Aleix Espargaro completed the front row in third place for Aprilia, which has been strong this weekend.

Last year, Marini’s VR46 teammate Marco Bezzecchi was the star of the show. The then-rookie took his first pole in MotoGP in the 2022 edition of this race, but he could only manage fourth this year. Surely, the key for Bezzecchi at this point is to get through the weekend and finally give the collarbone he broke before the Indonesian Grand Prix three weeks ago some rest.

Either way, Bezzecchi will be joined by Brad Binder (5th, top KTM) and the aforementioned Bagnaia on the second row, who start next to each other for the second time in as many races, after they started behind Martin on the front row last weekend in Australia.

Alex Marquez will head up row three in seventh place, ahead of Marc Marquez (8th, top Honda, top Japanese bike), and Maverick Vinales (9th). Fabio Quartararo (10th, top Yamaha) rounded out the top 10, ahead of last weekend’s winner Johann Zarco (11th) and Augusto Fernandez (12th).

Full MotoGP results from qualifying in Thailand are below.

2023 MotoGP Thailand Results | Qualifying