MotoGP

Marc Marquez wins from Ogura and Bagnaia in Czechia after Bezzecchi ban

Motorsport Technology
4 months ago
4 min read

Marc Marquez continued his extraordinary recovery from injury to beat Ai Ogura to the flag in a classic battle in the Grand Prix of Czechia.

“I’m extremely happy with this win,” commented Marquez on the Ducati website. “It was somehow an unexpected one, as I was sure that I would struggle towards the end.”

The reigning and seven-time MotoGP Champion recently underwent a double surgery to treat a broken bone in his right foot sustained in the French GP Sprint.

But following on from a remarkable victory in Hungary, Marquez was at it again holding off Japanese star Ogura after a race long duel as Francesco Bagnaia rounded out the podium.

“It did happen, actually, but the others were not quicker than me.

“I believe that the bike had something more, but I wasn’t able to make the most of it, especially in the change of direction between turns 6 and 7, which is normally one of my strong points, but where I was instead losing time.”

Credit: MotoGP official

With victory, Marquez cuts the gap in the riders’ championship standings to 40 points from Marco Bezzecchi who was absent from the race in a bizarre and somewhat unsavoury twist.

After crashing out of the Sprint race, the Italian rider ran to rescue his beached Aprilia, twice slapping a marshal in the face who was in the process of righting his bike.

The scenes, published across social media, drew widespread condemnation and stewards rightly slapped the rider with a race ban.

For his part, Bezzecchi was sincere in his published apology and was seen to hug the marshal on the morning of race day before presenting him with his riding gloves.

With Bezzecchi missing from race duties, the assembled crowd were still treated to one of the battles of the season, Ogura getting the best of starts before fighting tooth and nail to protect that lead.

The lead that tooed and froed dramatically, firstly with Bagnaia taking the lead past the Japanese into Turn 10 on lap two.

It remained a battle between the three, and when Marquez finally made the move stick on Bagnaia around Turn 4, he began to stretch away.

It was a classic three-way battle for victory  | Credit: MotoGP official

With five laps to go, Ogura passed Bagnaia and set about leader Marquez in a bid for a maiden feature race victory.

And, although the Trackhouse rider narrowed the gap to just 0.4s in a grandstand finish, it was too little too late to get past the legendary Spaniard.

“I’m taking each Grand Prix as it comes and right now I’m enjoying the moment,” added Marquez. “We’ll have a test tomorrow and then head straight to Assen.”

For the extremely popular Ogura, the wait for a maiden feature race continues. Having already notched pole positions and Sprint victory, the wait will surely end soon.

“It was a good surprise – the performance this weekend,” Agura is quoted on mcnews. Qualifying was really nice and in the Sprint I had a good pace.

“In the main race I think I had even better pace towards the end of the race, but Marc (Marquez) had a little bit more than me and I finished second.

“Overall, I think me and my team are really, really, happy about our weekend.”

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