{"id":42121,"date":"2026-02-28T12:04:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T12:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42121"},"modified":"2026-02-28T12:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T12:04:37","slug":"acosta-wins-season-opening-motogp-sprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42121","title":{"rendered":"Acosta wins season-opening MotoGP sprint"},"content":{"rendered":"
Defending MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez said he had no complaints after a final-lap penalty cost him victory in Saturday’s season-opening sprint in Thailand, with Pedro Acosta taking the win.<\/p>\n

Ducati’s Marquez is launching his bid for a record-equalling eighth world title but he had to settle for second in Buriram after being forced to drop a place for an illegal move.<\/p>\n

The decision gave KTM’s Acosta his first sprint win, in a 13-lap race that saw pole-sitter Marco Bezzecchi crash out on the second lap.<\/p>\n

Marquez, who started from second on the grid, shook hands with his fellow Spaniard Acosta after the race and said he would accept the decision.<\/p>\n

“In my opinion the race direction decides, so just I follow the rules,” said Marquez.<\/p>\n

Acosta finished 0.108sec ahead of Marquez, with Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez taking third.<\/p>\n

Marquez said earlier this week that he was still feeling the lingering effects of a shoulder injury that forced him to miss the final four races of last season.<\/p>\n

But he looked back to his usual aggressive self as he battled back and forth with Acosta.<\/p>\n

“Every time Pedro went to me, I went to get straight away on the next corner,” said the 33-year-old Marquez.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately I got that penalty but nine points, fair race, after an injury, not bad. I’m happy.”<\/p>\n

Acosta started from sixth on the grid and quickly emerged as Marquez’s biggest challenger after Bezzecchi wiped out early.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old Acosta said it was “super-cool to make a sprint like this versus Marc”.<\/p>\n

“It’s true that maybe I don’t feel like a winner because he let me pass, but anyway we have an opportunity tomorrow,” he added.<\/p>\n

Bezzecchi went into the sprint in red-hot form, having topped the timesheets in all three practices and finishing first in qualifying.<\/p>\n

But there had also been warning signs, with the Italian suffering a heavy crash at the end of qualifying.<\/p>\n

Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura finished the sprint fourth, with Aprilia’s Jorge Martin fifth and KTM’s Brad Binder sixth.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defending MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez said he had no complaints after a final-lap penalty cost him victory in Saturday’s season-opening sprint in Thailand, with Pedro Acosta taking the win. Ducati’s Marquez is launching his bid for a record-equalling eighth world title but he had to settle for second in Buriram after being forced to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}