Marc Marquez secured the MotoGP world championship with a second-place finish in the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi, the Ducati rider winning the title for the first time since 2019 and taking his seventh premier-class crown in a race won comfortably by teammate Francesco Bagnaia.
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Marquez wrapped up the title with five races remaining, the earliest in his 12-year career that he’s secured the title, which goes with his MotoGP championship wins in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, all of which came with Honda.
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The 32-year-old Spaniard overcame four right arm surgeries and a change of team in 2023 to reclaim the crown he last held six years ago, taking a 201-point championship lead with 185 points remaining this season to win a ninth world title after successes in the 125cc (2010) and Moto2 (2012) classes.
Marquez, who has won 11 of 17 Grands Prix this season and 14 of 17 sprint races, previously clinched his 2014, 2016 and 2018 titles at Motegi, became the first rider in history to reclaim the championship after a wait of at least five years.
“It’s impossible even to speak,” an emotional Marquez said, immediately referencing the 2020 decision to try to race one week after his first right arm surgery, the turning point of the first half of his career.
“I don’t want to remember what I passed … just want to enjoy the moment. But it’s true that it was difficult, super difficult. I did a big mistake on my career to come back too early [in 2020] … I fight, fight, fight and I won again. I’m at peace.”
Bagnaia completed a dominant weekend with a lights-to-flag win from pole position over the 24-lap race as he’d done over the 12-lap sprint on Saturday, the 2022 and 2023 world champion crossing the line 4.196 seconds ahead of his teammate.
Honda rider Joan Mir, the 2020 world champion, finished third for his first podium result since the Algarve Grand Prix of 2021, when he finished second for Suzuki.
As Bagnaia ran riot up front, the only cause for concern coming when the right-hand exhaust on his Ducati started to intermittently smoke from lap 15, Marquez had to fight his way past KTM rider Pedro Acosta from third on the grid, Marquez passing his compatriot on lap 11 but never having the pace to close Bagnaia down.
“I don’t want to take out any spotlight from Marc, he has arrived and he deserves any spotlight today,” Bagnaia said of his teammate after his second Grand Prix victory this season.
“In any case I’m happy [about my race], it’s just a shame that it happened now … but happy for the weekend and performance, and I hope from now on I will continue in this way because like this, I can fight.”
Marquez’s younger brother Alex Marquez, the only rider who could have kept the title race alive to the next event in Indonesia, finished sixth from eighth on the grid, and was never a factor as he finished 14.544secs behind Bagnaia.
Acosta ran off track at the first corner with six laps to go and dropped to last place, while Australia’s Jack Miller failed to finish after the chain on his Yamaha snapped when he was running in 14th place with three laps remaining.
Round 18 of the 22-round MotoGP season will take place at Mandalika in Indonesia from October 3-5.
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