Australian Jack Miller (Ducati) won the MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, a race in which Frenchman Fabio Quartararo, championship leader and 8th at the finish, gave himself a breath of fresh air against his Italian rival Francesco Bagnaia, victim of a fall.

On the Motegi track, South African Brad Binder, Miller's future teammate at KTM next season, and Spaniard Jorge Martin (Ducati-Pramac) complete the podium.

Four races from the end of the season, if Quartararo (Yamaha) finishes far behind in Japan, the Yamaha rider is performing an excellent operation in the championship.

The outgoing world champion, who started in a modest 9th place ahead of Bagnaia (Ducati), 12th on the grid, took advantage of the setbacks of his opponents to increase his lead.

18 points ahead of Bagnaia

If the Spaniard Aleix Espargaro, 17 points behind Quartararo before the Japanese round, immediately buried his chances of taking the lead in the championship because of a technical problem on his Aprilia, Bagnaia, in the fight with Quartararo for 8th place, fell on the very last lap.

The Frenchman now has 219 points overall, 18 more than Bagnaia (201 points) and 25 more than Aleix Espargaro (194), who finished in 16th place at Motegi.

Under a returning sun after the torrential rain fell the day before during qualifying, the six-time MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez, who started in the lead, finished in 4th place, losing the lead of the race from the first laps.

The Honda driver, who returned to competition last weekend after a three-month absence due to an operation on his right arm (the fourth in two years), scored his first pole since 2019 on the sodden Motegi circuit on Saturday.



For his 100th race in MotoGP, the other Frenchman on the grid Johann Zarco (Ducati-Pramac), who started second, finished in 11th place.

The next race on the MotoGP calendar is the Thailand Grand Prix next weekend.

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