The championship battle took a dramatic swing in the Qatar Grand Prix as a new MotoGP winner took to the top step of the podium.
There was a lot at stake coming to the penultimate round of the championship, with Francesco Bagnaia facing his first match point having held a lead of 14 points over Jorge Martin.
Victory in the sprint for Martin with Bagnaia fifth as a result of a rear tyre issue cut the gap to seven points and ensured the championship will be decided this week in Valencia.
But 24 hours later, a similar tyre issue for Martin saw him drop to 10th and Bagnaia take a 21-point lead in second having survived a late scare at Turn 1.
Martin raged at tyre supplier Michelin, claiming it “stole” the championship from him.
None of this mattered to Fabio Di Giannantonio, however, as he put in the ride of his career to become a MotoGP grand prix winner. It comes as he doesn’t have a ride for 2024, with the Honda option slipping away to Luca Marini and VR46 eyeing Moto2 star Fermin Aldeguer.
Elsewhere, Aleix Espargaro sparked controversy when he slapped Franco Morbidelli during an on-track incident in practice, while we got the first glimpses of MotoGP’s 2027 ruleset.
After a memorable weekend, here are the 10 things we learned from the 2023 MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix.
1. Di Giannantonio’s form merits 2024 ride, but he needed to show it sooner
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Di Giannantonio’s performance put him into a new standing in the pecking order
Fabio Di Giannantonio came to Qatar believing he could fight for the victory, telling the media as such on Thursday at Losail. The Italian has been in a decent run of form of late, scoring a maiden podium in Australia last month.
Qualifying his Gresini Ducati second on the grid, he manage to keep hold of that in the sprint for a first rostrum in the half-distance races for the season.
After initially getting beaten up in the grand prix, come lap five Di Giannantonio was back up to second and gave Francesco Bagnaia a good chase before overhauling him on the 19th tour having just been given the infamous ‘mapping 8’ signal on his dashboard.
As it happened, this was not a team order but a note to tell him that he had just five laps to go and if he wanted to win the grand prix then he should pull his finger out. When Bagnaia almost collided with him on the run into Turn 1 on lap 20 and gifted Di Giannantonio a lead of over three seconds, the job was…
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