Miguel Oliveira Proves His Mettle

Miguel Oliveira gave another brilliant performance in the wet to claim victory at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand. As for the championship battle, it intensifies further as just two points now separate Fabio and Pecco.

- Azaman Chothia

MotoGP

In the qualifying session, Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing team) secured pole position for the very first time in his career. starting in second and third place respectively were Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing) and francesco Bagnaia (Ducati lenovo team). after a slightly delayed start because of heavy rain, it was Marco Bezzecchi who got a good start from pole and then headed wide with Martin at turn one as they both avoided making contact. Meanwhile, Jack Miller (Ducati lenovo team) made up quite a few positions after starting from P7 and was already into P3 behind Bagnaia after just a few corners. the championship leader, yamaha’s fabio quartararo, started the race in P4 but dropped to P17 on the first lap itself and was struggling to keep up in the wet conditions. aprilia’s aleix espargaro made contact with Brad Binder (Red Bull KtM) while they were battling for P11, but both riders stayed on their bikes and aleix was later handed a long-lap penalty.

Bezzecchi held on to the lead after the incident with Martin and had already pulled a gap on Bagnaia, who was running in second at that time. unfortunately, Race Direction instructed that he drop a position because of running wide at turn one and this handed the lead of the race to Miller who had just passed his teammate, Bagnaia, for P2. With a lot of drama unfolding on just the first two laps, oliveira was getting into the flow and, having started from P11, had moved up into P4 and was suddenly the fastest man on track. Within the next few laps, olivera passed Bagnaia and Bezzecchi to get into P2 and start making his way for Miller.