Marc M\u00e1rquez delivered a masterclass at the Balaton Park Circuit on Sunday to win the first Hungarian Grand Prix in 33 years. The Ducati rider secured his seventh straight sprint-race double and stretched his world championship lead to 175 points.<\/p>\n
KTM\u2019s Pedro Acosta and Aprilia\u2019s Marco Bezzecchi joined M\u00e1rquez on the podium as the defending world champion, Jorge Mart\u00edn, came fourth \u2013 his best finish on the Aprilia since his return from injury.<\/p>\n
Against the picturesque backdrop of Lake Balaton, pole-sitter Marquez lost his lead on lap one to drop out of the podium positions but his tyre strategy proved decisive. His younger brother, \u00c1lex M\u00e1rquez (Gresini Racing), second in the overall standings behind his older brother, could only manage 14th place after an early fall.<\/p>\n
Having clinched his 13th sprint victory of the season on Saturday, Marc M\u00e1rquez found another good launch in the main race to lead into turn one. Bezzecchi took the lead on the next turn, though, as M\u00e1rquez made contact with the Aprilia and lost speed to drop to fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuckily, for both of us, I was able to save the crash and he just continued his way. But from that point the race changed a bit,\u201d M\u00e1rquez said afterwards.<\/p>\n
Marc M\u00e1rquez celebrates his win in Hungary. Photograph: Qian Jun\/MB Media\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bezzecchi and second-placed Franco Morbidelli (Ducati) were on soft rear tyres while M\u00e1rquez was on the medium compound, with the Spaniard easily climbing to second once his tyres were fully warmed up. Acosta also made a smooth overtake on Morbidelli to move up to third but he had a gap of nearly two seconds to M\u00e1rquez.<\/p>\n
The championship leader had virtually erased Bezzecchi\u2019s lead as they constantly exchanged overtakes, before M\u00e1rquez opted to stay on the Italian\u2019s rear wheel. The inevitable moment came on lap 11 when he pounced, using Bezzecchi\u2019s slipstream to reclaim the lead before streaking away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw that the soft rear tyres started to drop, I was with the medium, I started to attack,\u201d M\u00e1rquez said. \u201cI had a super nice rhythm. I was flowing on the track.\u201d Bezzecchi admitted his team\u2019s strategy did not pay off. \u201cI needed the extra grip in braking so I risked it with the soft. But maybe it was better [to use] the medium.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five laps later, Acosta attacked Bezzecchi on the same straight heading into turn one, guiding his KTM down the inside and carrying that momentum into the next turn to take second. Acosta had M\u00e1rquez in his sights but the six-times champion found another gear towards the end of the race, extending his lead to over three seconds.<\/p>\n
Acosta was ultimately happy with second place after destroying his bike in a qualifying crash. \u201cI just want to thank every one of [my team] because yesterday they were working until 2am to just bring two completely new bikes for this [race],\u201d the Spaniard said.<\/p>\n
The Aprilia garage were all smiles when Mart\u00edn, who started 16th on the grid, set a fastest lap before finishing fourth. The 2024 world champion has struggled since a serious crash in Qatar, but this result suggests those struggles may be behind him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc M\u00e1rquez delivered a masterclass at the Balaton Park Circuit on Sunday to win the first Hungarian Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-93790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}