MotoGP: Bagnaia takes stunning victory in Japan, Marquez seals his seventh MotoGP title

Hot on the heels of his sprint victory on Saturday, two-time MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia went on to secure his second victory of the season, displaying an absolutely dominant performance at the Japanse Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo reports on the Motegi race.

Satarting from pole position, Francesco Bagnaia had a great launch off the line and was able to keep the lead into the opening corner. However, his teammate Marc Marquez had a similar start as yesterday, and fell back to fourth, while KTM factory rider Pedro Acosta jumped into second place at the start.

However, the Ducati rider regained third place on the opening, which meant that the opening lap saw Bagnaia lead from Acosta, Marquez and Honda rider Joan Mir.

In the opening stages of the race, Marquez did not look too comfortable on his Ducati Desmosedici, and had to sit behind Acosta for the first 10 laps before getting the move for second done on the 11th tour.

But by now, Bagnaia built up a gap of over three seconds from the chasing pack just as he did in the sprint. However, there was a scare for Bagnaia as smoke began to come out of the rear of his Ducati.

The issue became apparent midway through the race, and did not disappear until the chquered flag. However, luckily for Bagnaia, the Italian was able to maintain his speed despite the technical woes.

In the meantime, Acosta started to struggle for grip midway through the race, and he lost third place to Mir. The KTM rider then lost two places, but he might have ended the Motegi round in sixth place. However, those hopes also ended when Acosta ran off at Turn 1 which saw him finish the Japanese Grand Prix in a disappointing 17th place.

At the front, the gap between Bagnaia and Marquez dropped over the final laps, possibly due to the technical issues, but the Italian's machine held out to the chequered flag for his second grand prix victory of the season.

2020 champion Mir fractionally missed out on the podium finish yesterday, but the Spaniard finally grabbed the last podium place to please Honda's fans on home soil for the Japanese manufacturer. His teammate Luca Marini dropped out early with an issue on his Honda.

Aprilia rider Marco Bezzecchi had a quiet race in Motegi, coming through from eighth to finish fourth, while VR46’s Franco Morbidelli took fifth.

Alex Marquez was the only rider with a mathematical chance of delaying Marc Marquez's coronation, but he could only finish the race in sixth on the Gresini Ducati, while Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse), Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), Johann Zarco (LCR) and Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini) completed the top 10.

The final points went to KTM duo Enea Bastianini and Brad Binder, VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, Pramac’s Miguel Oliveira and LCR’s Somkiat Chantra.