Martin wins Thai sprint to cut Bagnaia’s lead to 18 points

BANGKOK: Spain’s Jorge Martin led from pole to chequered flag to win the Thailand MotoGP sprint race on Saturday and cut championship leader Francesco Bagnaia’s lead to 18 points.

Pramac-Ducati rider Martin finished 0.933 seconds clear of South Africa’s Brad Binder in second, with Luca Marini of Italy third. Bagnaia was seventh.

The flying Spaniard Martin reached the first corner in the lead and was never headed as Bagnaia suffered a poor start from the second row, dropping back to ninth by the end of the opening lap.

Bagnaia began to find some pace a third of the way through the 13-lap dash and by the end of lap five was back up to seventh. But he struggled to make any inroads on Marco Bezzecchi’s Ducati-VR46 in front of him as Martin stretched his lead to more than 1.5 seconds with two laps to go. Agencies

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