[Porschefire]

Qatar GP - Full Qualifying Results



Jorge Martin has smashed the lap record with a timing of 1:50:789!

Next up, first Sprint of 2024 in 3.5hrs!

[Porschefire]

Qatar GP - Sprint





- Jorge Martin wins the first Sprint of 2024 and leads the championship. Although it was a comfortable win for him, he's still experiencing rear chatter on his Ducati and is hopeful that they can resolve it for the race tomorrow.

- Brad Binder was a constant second challenging Martin for the win.

- Aleix Espargaro found late pace to overtake the current world champion Bagnaia to third. The factory Aprilia manages the tires really well, especially in the second half, which will be a huge advantage for the race tomorrow.

- Marc Marquez jumped from 6th to 5th and following his reactions in the box after the sprint, he surely seemed happy with the result.

- Rookie, Pedro Acosta had a great first sprint of his career, scoring valuable 2 points for the 8th position.

- Jack Miller made a great start going from 11th to 7th, but losing it during the mid part of the sprint to eventually settle for 10th.

- Fabio Di Giannantonio was the only DNF as he had a strange accident on lap 3. He appeared to be in discomfort and needed assistance from the marshals. Hopefully, he should be ok for the race tomorrow.

[aravind.anand]

Marc Marquez could have snatched the 4th place from Pecco, had he not run wide at Turn-4. He definitely had much better pace and finished extremely close to Pecco.

A strong start by Jorge, who takes the first Sprint win of 2024, and also his 10th overall !!

[Porschefire]

Qatar GP - Race







- Pecco Bagnaia reigns supreme as he wins the first race of 2024. After having sprinted past Brad Binder and Jorge Martin, he led a flawless race and remains the king of Sundays!

- Brad Binder took a well deserved second spot as he rode his KTM beautifully, as always.

- Jorge Martin had a decent start from pole but was quickly overtaken by Pecco. From then on he constantly traded blows with Binder to ultimately claim the last spot on the podium.

- Pedro Acosta rode at an astonishing pace in the first half of the race, reaching up to 4th with a chance to grab a podium of debut, but the lack of experience got the better of him as he ate up his rear tyre and eventually finished 9th, scoring valuable points.

- The biggest losers of the race were Jack Miller and Aleix Espargaro. Aleix, having started on the front row got a terrible start and went backwards, finishing 8th behind Fabio Di Giannantonio. Jack had a horrendous race where he lost the front, rejoined the race and eventually finished last.

- The Japanese manufacturers had a decent outing as Fabio Quartararo, Johann Zarco and Joan Mir finished 11th, 12th and 13th respectively.

Fransesco Bagnaia leads the world championship going into Portimao, in two weeks' time.

[Rocky_Balboa]

A wonderful result for Marc, considering he is yet to find the sweet-spot on the GP23 and visibly struggling with controls during the abandoned 1st race start.

A great result for Pecco, Martin and an awesome race from Pedro - I am sure he will learn tyre management in due course and will be consistent at the front end.

Cant' wait for the year to unfold.

[rajeevsulu]

Pecco is going to rule this year too. Championships are won on Sundays. This man is the king of Sundays. All the glamour and gold medals are for Saturdays and championships for Sundays.
Cheers

[motor_breathing]

Looks like there is no streaming in discovery plus app, i wasted 399 is taking premium subscription. Oh my Jio, Aerox, call of blue !! Motogp video pass at 140EUR for year makes F1TV Pro looks VFM..

[aravind.anand]

I enjoyed all the three classes yesterday, even Moto-2 which is generally less engaging than the other 2 classes was entertaining with the fight going all the way to the line.

I was very impressed with Pedro Acosta's speed and attitude, and was clapping hands and grinning when he took 4th place from Marc! Only to find that he unfortunately had used up his tyres and still ended the race at a very respectable 9th. Very promising young kid!

Marc is getting better and better, he looked a bit more comfortable than he looked during the Sprint race. It is only a matter of time before he gets back to winning now. But he has 3 problems - Martin, Binder and Pecco

Pecco's got talent and pulled a classy act yesterday. Calm composed and completely controlling the race, no one could even get close to him after he took the lead and broke free. Very impressive!

Originally Posted by motor_breathing

Looks like there is no streaming in discovery plus app, i wasted 399 is taking premium subscription. Oh my Jio, Aerox, call of blue !! Motogp video pass at 140EUR for year makes F1TV Pro looks VFM..

Me too! If they were not going to broadcast, why all the news? that too with 5 days to go, they came up with this fake news and made so many of us get the subscription. Useless !!

[ds.raikkonen]

Originally Posted by aravind.anand

I was very impressed with Pedro Acosta's speed and attitude, and was clapping hands and grinning when he took 4th place from Marc! Only to find that he unfortunately had used up his tyres and still ended the race at a very respectable 9th. Very promising young kid!

Marc is getting better and better, he looked a bit more comfortable than he looked during the Sprint race. It is only a matter of time before he gets back to winning now. But he has 3 problems - Martin, Binder and Pecco

Me too! If they were not going to broadcast, why all the news? that too with 5 days to go, they came up with this fake news and made so many of us get the subscription. Useless !!

Acosta was very impressive, but the way he used up tyres in the initial stages for some showmanship showed he is still a rookie, looks more like the next Jorge Martin than Marc Marquez

Marc though, he will become the shark come Portimao now that he has a full race distance on the GP23 under his belt

Regarding the Disco+ debacle, I think we should all raise this to them and request a refund or something. What do you guys think? More than the 399 spent, its the fraud/miscommunication that got my goat.

[motor_breathing]

Marquez is the fastest rider on a GP23. The second seat on Prima Pramac is wasted on Franco. May be they should do a rider swap with immediate effect. It will be interesting to see how MM, Pecco and JM stack up against each other in a single lap, sprint and full race distance.

Disco+ i would blame some speculative journalism than any fraud by the discovery team

[Porschefire]

Originally Posted by motor_breathing

Marquez is the fastest rider on a GP23. The second seat on Prima Pramac is wasted on Franco. May be they should do a rider swap with immediate effect. It will be interesting to see how MM, Pecco and JM stack up against each other in a single lap, sprint and full race distance.

Disco+ i would blame some speculative journalism than any fraud by the discovery team

While I agree Marc would be a better bet than Franco on a factory spec Ducati, it has to be noted that Franco had a bad accident in Portimao earlier this year and didn't take part in the Sepang and Qatar tests. So, it is natural that he'll need some time to get used to a Ducati.
Also, Marc is still not comfortable with the GP23 so, he may not be able to extract the full potential of the GP24 yet.
Lastly, a rider swap after just one race seems unfair, doesn't it?

[motor_breathing]

Originally Posted by Porschefire

While I agree Marc would be a better bet than Franco on a factory spec Ducati, it has to be noted that Franco had a bad accident in Portimao earlier this year and didn't take part in the Sepang and Qatar tests. So, it is natural that he'll need some time to get used to a Ducati.
Also, Marc is still not comfortable with the GP23 so, he may not be able to extract the full potential of the GP24 yet.
Lastly, a rider swap after just one race seems unfair, doesn't it?

I am not sure if Franco did enough to deserve an Factory Ducati seat. I am aware of his serious road bike accident in Portimao. But even before that I was skeptic about his performance this year. Bez's reluctance to move to Pramac resulted in them going for Franco early. Anyway MM's exit clause had it that he could break Honda contract for only a non factory team. My statement was just a wishful thinking to see some action at the sharp end of the grid.

[ds.raikkonen]

Originally Posted by motor_breathing

I am not sure if Franco did enough to deserve an Factory Ducati seat. I am aware of his serious road bike accident in Portimao. But even before that I was skeptic about his performance this year. Bez's reluctance to move to Pramac resulted in them going for Franco early.

Even Franco would have been wondering how on Earth he landed a Pramac ride. Though I want him to do well and get back to speed, he will be comprehensively out-qualified and out-performed by JM89. Though Zarco was also avg, except that fantastic win at Phillip Island, he looks like the better deal than Franco.

Bez will be kicking himself now that the PE VR46 team is not close to their 2023 pace. Or maybe its just the first race, let's see how things unfold at Portimao.

[aravind.anand]

Originally Posted by ds.raikkonen

Regarding the Disco+ debacle, I think we should all raise this to them and request a refund or something. What do you guys think? More than the 399 spent, its the fraud/miscommunication that got my goat.

We can only request for a goodwill gesture here, as the news about Discovery+ being the official broadcast provider was from the media, not from their side - tp be fair with them

Originally Posted by motor_breathing

Marquez is the fastest rider on a GP23. The second seat on Prima Pramac is wasted on Franco. May be they should do a rider swap with immediate effect. It will be interesting to see how MM, Pecco and JM stack up against each other in a single lap, sprint and full race distance.

Just a reminder, Fabio Diganantonio was the last Ducati (finishing behind the other manufacturers too) for 1.5 seasons before he came up to speed and started challenging for podiums. So Ducati will wait for the contract to run-out. A mid-season swap like F1 seems unrealistic to me.

Originally Posted by Porschefire

While I agree Marc would be a better bet than Franco on a factory spec Ducati, it has to be noted that Franco had a bad accident in Portimao earlier this year and didn't take part in the Sepang and Qatar tests. So, it is natural that he'll need some time to get used to a Ducati.

True, I agree that we cannot pass a judgement on Franco, yet. As he is recovering, and he has also missed out on the tests completely.
But I was among the many who were surprised how he got the Ducati ride in the first place when the news broke out last year

On another note:
Fabio Quartararo has won the Japanese GP race yesterday!! Having finished 11th, he is the highest placed rider on a Japanese bike.

12th Zarco, 13th Joan Mir, 16th Alex Rins, 19th Nakagami & 20th Marini were the finishing positions of the other riders. Seems like a very long way to go for the Japs!

[Thalla]

As expected, Bagnaia proved too good for the other drivers in Qatar.