THRILLING MOTOGP SEASON START AS ACOSTA WINS SPRINT IN THAILAND
The 2026 MotoGP season begins with high drama at the Grand Prix of Thailand. The Tissot Sprint race gives fans an intense battle between Pedro Acosta and Marc Marquez.
Acosta takes his first-ever Sprint victory. He also becomes the youngest rider to win a Sprint race. Marquez fights hard and even makes contact with Acosta with less than two laps to go. In the final moments, Marquez gives the position back to his Spanish rival after the contact. Raul Fernandez of Trackhouse MotoGP Team completes the podium.
Qualifying
Earlier in the weekend, Marco Bezzecchi earned pole position. He lined up ahead of Marc Marquez and Raul Fernandez, who improves his time late in qualifying to take third place. Jorge Martin qualified fifth after being passed by Fabio Di Giannantonio, who started fourth. Pedro Acosta lined up sixth to complete the second row.
On race start, Marquez launches from second place and quickly takes the lead ahead of Bezzecchi and Fernandez. At the first corner, there is contact between Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio that make both lose many positions.
In the opening laps, Bezzecchi and Marquez battle closely, swapping positions and putting on a show. Acosta moves into third after passing Fernandez. It looked like the fight for victory would have been between Bezzecchi and Marquez, but Bezzecchi crashed at Turn 8 on lap three. Acosta closed in on Marquez.
Francesco Bagnaia made a strong recovery. Starting from 13th on the grid, he climbed to eighth place. Di Giannantonio moved up to tenth.
At half distance, Marquez led by less than three tenths of a second. Acosta stayed close, waiting for the right moment to attack. Raul Fernandez held third place but is further behind. Jorge Martin moved closer to the podium fight, with Ai Ogura just behind him on the other Aprilia.
In the final laps, the win became a direct fight between Marquez and Acosta. Marquez almost crashed at one point. Then, just before the last lap, the two Spaniards made contact, Acosta ran wide. Marquez crossed the line first, but after the contact he had to give the position back, handing victory to Acosta.
Pedro Acosta wins his first Sprint race, Marc Marquez finishes second, and Raul Fernandez takes third. Ai Ogura finishes fourth ahead of Jorge Martin, three Aprilia bikes finish in the top five. Brad Binder takes sixth place, followed by Joan Mir. Fabio Di Giannantonio and Francesco Bagnaia complete the points positions. Luca Marini finishes tenth. Alex Marquez ends the race in 11th, rookie Diogo Moreira finishes 13th, and Toprak Razgatlioglu crashes out.
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