Season summary
The opening round in Qatar was won by Ducati satellite rider Enea Bastianini for Gresini Racing, marking the rider's inaugural premier class victory, and the first for the team since 2006. [1] The return of the Indonesian Grand Prix to the championship in the second round was marked by a wet-weather win for Miguel Oliviera and KTM. [2] The third round of the season in Argentina saw Aleix Espargaró take the checkered flag for Aprilia, his first race win in any world championship class and the first ever for Aprilia in the premier class. [3] At the Grand Prix of the Americas, Bastianini scored his second win of the season to enter the European season of the championship as leader for the riders' title. [4]
Defending champion Fabio Quartararo took his first win of the season at Portugal, to take lead of the riders' standings. [5] In Jerez, Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia dominated, taking his first win of the season starting from pole and leading all laps, to mark the second grand chelem of his career. [6] With consecutive third place finishes for Aleix Espargaró in Portimão and Jerez adding to their Argentine victory and a podium finish in 2021, Aprilia lost their manufacturer's concessions that aim for underforming manufacturers to gain slight advantages for 2023. [7] Enea Bastianini took his third victory of the season in France after pressuring Ducati works rider Bagnaia into a late race error, while Espargaró and Aprilia took to the third step of the podium for the third race in succession. [8] At Mugello, Bagnaia and factory Ducati took their second victory of the season in front of a home crowd, ahead of championship leader Quartararo in second, and Espargaró taking his fourth consecutive third-place finish. [9] Quartararo took his second victory of the season to extend his championship lead in Catalunya. His primary title rival Espargaró dropped from second position (for potentially his fifth consecutive podium finish) to fifth place on the final lap, after miscounting the laps remaining. [10] [11] Quartararo won for the third time in Germany. [12] Bagnaia took his third win in Assen, while title front-runners Quartararo and Espargaró clashed on the fifth lap, resulting in the Frenchman retiring from the race while the Spaniard recovered to finish in fourth place. [13] Quartararo was later handed a long lap penalty for the crash, which was to be served at the next round at Silverstone. [14] Heading into the summer break, Quartararo led the riders' championship, while Ducati led the manufacturers' championship and Aprilia Racing the teams' championship.
Returning in Britain, Bagnaia took his fourth win of the season to lessen the gap to championship frontrunners Quartararo and Espargaró, who struggled to 8th and 9th place finishes respectively. [15] In Austria, Enea Bastianini took his first career pole position, before crashing out on lap 6 due to issues with a bent front wheel rim. [16] Bagnaia led from the first lap to take his third consecutive victory ahead of Quartararo. [17] At the San Marino round, Bagnaia took his fourth straight win to shorten Quartararo's advantage to 30 points with six rounds remaining, and beat Casey Stoner's record for consecutive wins for a Ducati rider. [18] Marc Márquez returned to the championship in Aragón after a three-and-a-half month absence due to surgery, but was involved in a pair of first-lap incidents which saw himself, championship leader Quartararo and fellow Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami retire from the race. The race was won by Bastianini on a last-lap overtake of Bagnaia, to take his fourth victory of the season and end Bagnaia's win streak. [19] With this their tenth victory of the season, Ducati clinched the manufacturers' championship for the third consecutive season with five races remaining.
In Japan, Marc Márquez took pole position in a wet qualifying session, his first pole in 1071 days since the previous Japanese Grand Prix in 2019. [20] In the race, the championship frontrunners struggled, with Francesco Bagnaia crashing out in a final lap attempt to overtake Fabio Quartararo for 8th position, while Aleix Espargaro started the race from the pit lane due to a bike swap after the sighting lap and could only recover to 16th place. Jack Miller took the lead from 7th on the grid on the third lap and led to the finish line ahead of Brad Binder and Jorge Martín. [21] At the Thai round, rookie Marco Bezzecchi took his maiden pole position and thus set a new MotoGP record for unique pole sitters in a season at 10. For the second time in the season, Miguel Oliveira rode his KTM to a race win in the wet. Quartararo struggled to finish in 17th place while Bagnaia achieved a podium finish to cut Quartararo's lead to just 2 points with three rounds remaining. [22] In Australia, Álex Rins crossed the line first in a group of seven riders separated by fewer than 0.9 seconds to take Suzuki's first win of their final season. Quartararo crashed out of the race while Bagnaia finished in third, resulting in Bagnaia taking over the championship lead for the first time in the season. [23] At the Malaysian race, Bagnaia took the win ahead of Bastianini and Quartararo, meaning the title decision would go down to the final round in Valencia. [24] Rins took his second win of the season in Valencia for Suzuki's final race in the MotoGP championship. After a second-lap collision between the two title leaders, Quartararo managed to finish only in 4th place while Bagnaia achieved 9th, sufficient for him to take Ducati's first riders' championship since Casey Stoner in 2007. [25]
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