After the eventful weekend at the Mandalika GP, Jorge Martin and Marc Marquez came into Phillip Island in Australia for the circuit’s last ever MotoGP weekend. The ocean-facing circuit is due to be replaced by the Adelaide street circuit from 2027. However, Marc Marquez has departed the island as the decisive championship leader, having won Saturday’s sprint.
- Martin had a high-speed crash on lap 8 of the Sprint
- Marquez held on to P1 in Sprint and leads the championship by 10 points
- Sunday’s race was cancelled due to weather conditions
Last race at Phillip Island was eventful
Marquez started off strong with his 24th Sprint win
To recap, we have to rewind three weeks to the Motegi GP in Japan. With his Sprint and GP wins, Marc narrowed the championship lead to Martin to 2 points. However, Mandalika GP was expected to be a tough weekend for the Factory Ducati rider as he had never finished a Sunday race at the circuit. A surprise that no one saw coming was the Saturday sprint, where Marquez clinched the victory. Marc, on his part, won his first GP since the Italian GP in May. Thus, the Martin-Marquez duo entered and exited Mandalika with the same 2 points separating them in the championship in favour of Martin.
As such, the Phillip Island GP already had a lot riding on it, and with it being the last GP at the circuit, fans had a lot to look forward to. The 13-lap Sprint was extremely eventful. The #93 started from pole and had a great start, but Martin quickly overtook Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco (P2 and P3, respectively) and ended up overtaking Marc Marquez for the first time on lap 3. Marquez waited with what we assume was bated breath and was quick to overtake Martin when the latter made a mistake on lap 5. The duo kept at it a few more times until Martin had a high-speed crash on lap 8, bringing a premature end to his battle against Marc Marquez and handing P2 to Alex Marquez. Alex, towards the end, had more pace than Marc, but later explained that he chose not to overtake to avoid risking Marc’s championship.
Marco Bezzecchi had a great recovery run
Mechanical and/or physical problems led to four other retirements
While this happened at the front lines, Zarco was overtaken by Pedro Acosta, and the Frenchman ended up retiring his LCR Honda in lap 5 due to a technical issue. Marco Bezzecchi, the other Aprilia rider on the track, had a poor Q2 and thus started the Sprint from P9 and ended up in P12 by the end of the first lap. However, the Italian recovered extremely well, finishing the race in P4. Fabio Di Giaannantonio, who started ahead of him in P8, also had an excellent race, winning a consecutive podium after Mandalika.
Besides Zarco and Martin, Francesco Bagnaia, Raul Fernandez and Maverick Vinales also didn’t finish their Sprint races, due to either mechanical issues or in the case of Fernandez, an old injury necessitating it. Raul Fernandez and Jorge Martin also announced that they would withdraw from the Sunday race because of their injuries, with Martin having suffered a fracture in his right wrist. The two Spaniards added to the list of four riders who already missed the race due to injuries: Joan Mir, Fermin Aldeguer, Toprak Razgatlioglu and Luca Marini.
Sunday GP cancelled due to weather conditions
Phillip Island’s last GP weekend was anti-climactic
Sunday was also eventful but not quite in the way we’d hoped. Prevailing weather conditions led to Moto3 and Moto2 races getting cancelled first, with race control eventually deciding to cancel the MotoGP race as well. The difficult decision was taken after the weather was found too severe for the medical helicopter to operate safely. The riders who had qualified for the race said goodbye to the monumental circuit with two full laps behind a safety car.
With Saturday’s events, Marquez was expected to gain a sizeable lead over Martin by Sunday evening, aiding him further in his championship campaign. However, with the race cancelled, Marquez will now go to the Malaysian GP at Sepang next week, leading Martin by just 10 points. It remains to be seen if Martin will be back in time for Sepang next week, although the severity of his injury makes that seem unlikely.
Unnatee Gidithuri
Saptarshi Mondal
