The Catalan Grand Prix proved to be one of the most chaotic MotoGP races in recent memory, with unfortunately both Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco suffering fractures in separate accidents.
The weekend put the spotlight on MotoGP’s safety standards and how the championship responds in such high-pressure situations.
The competitive order was also shaken up in Barcelona as Aprilia failed to trouble the podium finishers and KTM missed out on a big opportunity amid an intense challenge from Ducati.
No fewer than five riders received penalties more than two hours after the race had finished, adding further drama to an already turbulent weekend.
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Winner: Fabio di Giannantonio
Fabio Di Giannantonio, VR46 Racing Team
This wasn’t the kind of Sunday that would put MotoGP in a positive light. The collision between Marquez and Pedro Acosta was a freak accident, and it’s hard to fault MotoGP or the circuit itself for the ensuing chaos. A medical team arrived quickly at the scene of the incident, Marquez was declared conscious soon after, and the camera didn’t pan to the Spaniard as he lay on the ground (considering how some of the past incidents were broadcast). Whether the race should have been restarted while Marquez was being transported to the hospital was less of an ethical call and more of a commercial consideration, at least as far as MotoGP was concerned.
However, the dramatic restart where Zarco got tangled up in Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati was completely avoidable, as Turn 1 is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous on the calendar. Then, the race was restarted yet again, putting riders through another launch sequence heading into the same section. That is where MotoGP and FIM probably overstepped a mark.
Ironically, if the race had been declared early, fans would have been denied a nail-biting finish. But while the final 12-lap sprint passed without any further drama, the wider issue for MotoGP and Liberty Media is how weekends like this shape the perception of the championship among fans and the broader public.
Winner: Ducati
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
The Barcelona weekend was nothing short of a disaster for Aprilia. In fact, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the Noale factory. Whether that was its own riders taking out each other, crashing at crucial points, qualifying too far down the grid or generally lacking pace, Aprilia had to face it all in the span of 72 hours in Spain.
Jorge Martin went down time and again over the weekend despite clearly having the pace to contend for a podium, if not the win. He had already made his life tough with repeated crashes before Raul Fernandez forced him out in an incident that led to visible tensions between their respective teams, Aprilia and Trackhouse.
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Marco Bezzecchi was fortunate to be classified fourth, considering he was fighting with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo at one point of the race. But while a chaotic race handed him big points on Sunday, he only came away with a ninth-place finish in the sprint.
Even Trackhouse squandered a big opportunity as Ai Ogura’s qualifying struggles deepened – the penalty for crashing with Acosta added to his woes – and Fernandez couldn’t convert his improved form into a podium in either race.
Winner and loser: Pedro Acosta
Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing
This weekend should have been one of the highlights of the year for KTM. Acosta was right up there at the front, Brad Binder was regularly running inside the top 10, Enea Bastianini appeared quick despite missing Q2, and Vinales finally returned to action after a long injury layoff.
Yet, the RC16s suffered from an alarming number of problems across the race weekend. First, it was Vinales who had to retire from the sprint due to oil spilling out of the bike and making it impossible for him to keep his foot on the footrest.
On Sunday, Binder had to take a pitlane start after encountering a technical issue on the warm-up lap. Then, within a few laps of each other, both Bastianini and Acosta suffered a sudden loss of power due to unrelated issues. Bastianini was able to park his bike with what was initially understood to be an engine issue, but Acosta’s problem arose just as he was accelerating out of Turn 9, leading to a big collision with Marquez.
Even putting the technical issues aside, KTM picked up very few points from the weekend (although Acosta did finish second in the sprint). Binder came home seventh after benefitting from a slew of penalties, while Vinales was classified 11th.
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