Marc Márquez lived a big Saturday in Portimao. As much as Cervera came to ensure that the realistic thing was to aspire to get into fifth position in this season premiere in MotoGP, he ended up taking pole and climbed to the third step of the podium in the first sprint race in history. And he did it by signing some of those actions that so dazzle his legion of followers. Aware of the limitations of his mount, he took advantage of the slipstream of the Ducati of Enea Bastianini to end up recording a time of 1: 37.226 that allowed him to beat the track record and take pole number 92 of his career. In the sprint race, meanwhile, he would succumb before finishing the first lap before the piloting and the power of the machines of Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín, ultimately first and second, but he also left samples of his privileged vision by taking advantage of the duel between Miller, again very fast, and Oliveira to take third place that, After a mistake by the Portuguese, it would end up completely in his hands.

"I used all the physics to compensate, especially under braking, to enter the corners skidding a bit. In this type of race you can do it, it is very tiring, but it is where I could recover, assuming a lot of risk, "confessed once the sprint race was over, a Marc who thanked all the work carried out with his team. "We were until last night looking at the details, they gave me clues and I know that telling a guy who has won several championships what he has to do is difficult, but we have a lot of confidence. I know the race itself will be even tougher, but I think we can do something."

Pecco Bagnaia, current world champion and first winner of a sprint race in the history of MotoGP, for his part, said that the race was longer than he thought, but also highlighted his showiness, no matter how much the wind facing the finish straight complicated things a bit. "It's been a lot of fun. It was difficult to win, because it was the first time and with this kind of wind, but I knew that the race was going to be long. I saw that Jorge had more problems than me in the front and I took advantage of it to overtake him. I thought it would be shorter, but I enjoyed it a lot," said the Italian. "I'm definitely very happy. I would have loved to keep the first place, but I made a mistake and struggled with the soft rear tyre. In spite of everything, I have a lot of confidence in my chances and I led several laps," said Martin.

The fight between the Spaniard and Bagnaia was one of the focuses of interest in a race in which, of course, the pilots went to the limit. Therefore, it was not uncommon for many of them to find their bones on the ground. Joan Mir was the first of them, in an incident with Fabio Quartaro investigated by the judges that ended without any sanction. Gas Gas' Augusto Fernández was also unable to complete the first round. Luca Marini and Enea Bastianini, on the other hand, had a much more spectacular accident and were also left out, along with a Marco Bezzechi who was the last of the drivers who could not finish the race. Quartaro, who would finally finish as tenth classified and was thus left out of the distribution of points, was perhaps the greatest of the disappointments, although the Portuguese fans, surely, would hurt much more the error, almost in the last breath, of the great local idol, a Miguel Oliveira who was finally seventh.

The Portuguese fought for a long time side by side with a Jack Miller who, at times, became the fastest driver on the track. Not surprisingly, he had already managed to establish, in Friday's training, a seemingly stratospheric record of 1.37.709 that would finally be pulverized by Marc Márquez. The seven points that Cervera finally took allow him to momentarily start the championship also in third place in the table, behind Bagnaia (12 points) and Martín (9 points). He was followed by the Australian, with six points, Maverick Viñales, with five, Aleix Espargaro, with four, Oliveira, with three, the Frenchman Johann Zarco, with two, and his brother Alex closed the points zone with one. This Sunday, with twice as many laps and twice as many points at stake, the bikes will roar again to test their mettle.

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