Ducati clinches second straight MotoGP title but rider championship still unclear
Francesco Bagnaia's seventh-place finish in the sprint race for the Thai GP mathematically eliminated Red Bull Racing's Brad Bender and officially took KTM out of the running for the 2024 championship. With three rounds remaining, Ducati has clinched their second consecutive MotoGP title with Bagnaia and Jorge Martin still in the running for the honor.
Sitting 140 markers out of first and 11 points up for grabs, Ducati's Marco Bezzecchi was eliminated after the conclusion of the feature. But with last week's win in both the sprint and feature, Martin shaved eight points off Bagnaia's lead and has turned the season into a contest in which both riders control their fate.
The Thai GP might well have been worse for Bagnaia.
He crossed under the checkers third, which would have cost an additional four points, before Binder was penalized one position for exceeding track limits on the final lap as that trio engaged in a fierce battle. Still, with a margin of only 0.253 seconds between those three riders at the checkers, this was the fourth closest podium margin in the history of MotoGP. Bagnaia is no stranger to close finishes; he was also part of the third smallest podium margin of 0.224 seconds set in the Australian GP only last year.
For Martin, the numbers simply lined up in Thailand. As MotoGP.com points out, this was the fourth time in Martin's career that he won both the sprint and feature race. All four of his sweeps have come in 2023 after previously doing so in the German, San Marino and Japanese Grands Prix. Martin now has one more sweep than Bagnaia, the rider he hopes to catch in the next three weeks.
The Thai GP victory is the fifth of Martin's career. Since all of those have come with Ducati, he moves up to fifth on their wins list and could pass Loris Capirossi if he wins the next three rounds.
This was Ducati's sixth consecutive win, equaling a mark they set last year from the Dutch to Japanese GPs. Martin has three of those with Bagnaia and Bezzecchi each winning the other two.
Between them, Bagnaia and Martin have finished first and second in 10 races this year. It is the 14th time the manufacturer has won. Having already set a record in Australia, a race won by Johan Zarco, Ducati continues to add to their number.
And still, Bagnaia has the lead by virtue of winning five of the first 10 rounds. Then came the near-catastrophic Catalan GP when Bagnaia high-sided on Lap 1 and had his legs run over by Binder. Bagnaia rebounded to podium in five of the next six rounds, but a retirement in India has put him at risk. Martin finished second in that race but has a retirement of his own in Indonesia.
With strong finishes in Thailand, Ducati now has a streak of 43 GPs in which they have podiumed but the question remains which of their riders will walk away with the championship. As close as the season has been between Bagnaia and Martin, everyone will just have to wait and see.
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