MotoGP 2023
Round 11 – Catalunya – MotoGP
Aleix Espargaro – P1
“The greatest day of my life, although not at all easy. At the second start, after seeing Bagnaia’s bad crash, I was tense and nervous and I lost ground behind Maverick. Then I decided to push, without thinking too much about tyre wear or the risks, because I really wanted to battle for the win. When I caught up with him, it was rather clear that he was having difficulty with grip and I overtook him. It’s incredible to see two Aprilias ahead of everyone. It means that we are growing, but we mustn’t be fooled into thinking that we’ve already arrived. We still need to work hard together, proud of what we are doing and all united, moving towards the same objective.”
Maverick Vinales – P2
“I’m extremely happy with what we are doing in Aprilia. Here I have found motivation and an extraordinary team, and it is exciting that now the results of our work are visible to everyone. This scenario was difficult to even imagine. I made a wager with myself, but I was fully convinced. The win will come. The important thing is to be consistent and to have a fast bike on every track. Today I had to slow down at a certain point, especially due to front tyre wear, but I still had good grip at the rear. Maybe Aleix’s riding style works better from this point of view. In any case, two podiums in one weekend are an extremely good personal result, especially because we have done something unique as a team.”
Jorge Martin – P3
“Today was a really complicated race, the weekend overall was difficult. But I feel like I was closing the gap every day, and I am happy with this. We get the maximum we could, finishing on the podium. The Aprilias were unbeatable this weekend. I tried the best, but the Ducati we struggle to turn the bike, get the power down to the ground, the last laps it seemed like I was riding a Supersport. I saw Binder pass through Pecco’s legs so I was a bit scared, but now they tell me he is not injured a lot so I am happy for this for sure. After that Binder spray me with a lot of oil, my bike covered in oil, I broke the swing-arm too. The other bike was ready to race and thanks to my team they could change everything and be ready.”
Johann Zarco – P4
“A good first braking, I tried to tighten the inside well so as not to catch Binder and Oliviera and there, there is Bastianini who takes us away. I’m really furious and my bike doesn’t start again. We’re going uphill, I turn around to push her downhill, she doesn’t start, it’s annoying. I then find a scooter to get back. There’s the red flag especially for Pecco, he is conscious but we are not too sure. I am, at that time very angry with Bastianini. Already yesterday he had carried out an identical manoeuvre but which ended well. Luckily it took some time to clear the track because it’s quite a story. The bike I rode on was fitted with the latest medium tyre we have. The second had a soft tyre, and then the bike came back into the box and we just had time to change the wheel. I had to be careful because this tyre was cold unlike the soft. I was careful at the start of the race and then I came back up once I was confident, and when my competitors started to suffer I was able to attack and I finished 4th, which is good.”
Miguel Oliveira – P5
“For the first seven or eight laps I was doing well, then it was quite hard to hold on Jorge (Martin) and Johann (Zarco) in the last few laps. My front tyre was destroyed on the right side, something we more or less expected for this long race. Also the rear dropped as everyone else did and it was difficult to save the tyre. But overall, I have to take the positives, it was a good weekend and we were fast. Also in the race, with all these difficulties, we could still fight for top five and be in third place for a couple of laps is not bad at all. I’m walking away to Misano with a good feeling and motivation to start working there.”
Alex Marquez – P6
“We knew it would have been a long and challenging race and in the end it was. It was a survival race until the end. We struggled during the whole weekend and sixth is a positive result considering the crash we initial crash. The important thing is that we keep growing and scoring points.”
Fabio Quartararo – P7
“This morning we went back to last year‘s set-up and fairing. It helped quite a lot. I think that the race today was great. I had a great start and great first few laps, and seventh was the maximum we could do today. This weekend we stayed calm and worked hard. It‘s good, but we still need to figure out so many things. Hopefully we can get more information also in Misano to be 100% sure of what we will do. I think that it was a quite difficult weekend overall, but if we gradually make a step forward, that is super important.”
Jack Miller – P8
“I’m not one for getting too excited for finishing eighth most of the time, but from where we were on Saturday here in Catalunya, I’ll definitely take it. Saturday was just kind of nowhere, so to be much closer to the front in the Grand Prix and – more importantly than that – feeling like I’d made some headway left me in a better mood, and it was something we definitely needed.
“I actually apologised to the mechanics on Sunday because all weekend they’d been working their butts off to try to find me a solution. It’s always super low-grip here, it’s one of the lowest-grip tracks we come to, and Saturday was a struggle, finishing 16th and so far off the front guys in the Sprint. We turned the bike upside down and inside out on Saturday night, made a massive change, and I felt like I wobbled around for the first six laps on Sunday but I felt immediately that I could get a bit more feedback and was able to, step by step, push it a little bit more. It felt a lot more normal, thankfully.
“The good start helped, but I made a couple of mistakes early on just sorting my braking marker out in Turn 1. The wind was a massive tail-wind down into there, and that cost me a bit of time and allowed Alex (Marquez) to come through, and in turn Fabio as well. But I started to go quite strong at the end once they started suffering on the right-hand side of the tyre. I was able to come back to them. I felt I had plenty of tyre there at the end, so it was fun when you can start riding the way you want to. As the race went on, I felt more comfortable and knew where I could push, and where I couldn’t. I’m just happy to come out of here with a good feeling, to be honest. We made some headway, probably the first headway we’ve made in a couple of weeks. We’ve made a big step, so hopefully that carries over to Misano.
“There’d been a bit of a pattern forming this year – Silverstone, Austria, here – they’re all tracks that are pretty low on grip, and this one is probably the worst. And then there was Argentina earlier this year … anyway, with my riding style, it seems to be one of the things I’ve not found out how to do on the KTM yet, and I just suffer a lot. When we get to Misano, that’s usually one of the grippiest tracks on the calendar, and all those problems will be gone. I mean, there’ll be other problems, there always is, but not those ones …
“I was pleased to hear my old team-mate (Ducati’s) Pecco (Bagnaia) was relatively okay after the crash on Sunday, lap one here can often be pretty chaotic but that was a big one even for here. If you look at the history books, there’s always a big one in Barcelona – always has been, always will be. It’s such a big drag to the first corner that you can make up a lot of positions, or you can lose a lot of positions in that first chicane. We’re doing upwards of 250 km/h into Turn 1 – you put 22 bikes together, that’s a lot of bikes going down to a second-gear corner. It’s bound to happen, really. That’s two years in a row now, and Pecco has copped it both times.
“(Ducati’s Enea) Bastianini sent it in from a long way back, and as soon as I saw the rear wheel start to hop as he went towards the apex of the corner I thought ‘this is not going to be good’, so I pulled myself back a little bit and, sure enough, in front of me she all went down, it was dominoes at Turn 1. After that, I was just trying to avoid Pecco’s bike at Turn 2 after he’d high-sided on the cold tyre, Brad unfortunately ran over Pecco’s leg … it was definitely chaotic in that first lap.
“You never want to see something like that, especially when you’re in front of 22 guys. It’s one of the biggest high-sides I’ve seen for a long time, he hit the ground seriously hard … hopefully he’ll be right come Misano.”
Augusto Fernandez – P9
“I’m happy with today’s race even though it was not an easy one! I had to manage the tires, but that was the case for everyone. I was pleased with my pace and I feel it was a bit better than the group in front but it was difficult to pass, especially Diggia who was so strong on the brakes. It took me a while but luckily I got him on the last corner. Happy with my pace, a positive Sunday.”
Fabio Di Giannantonio – P10
“Unfortunately we can’t have a better start than this and we’ll have to work on it. I think I did an excellent race as I was likely the rider who overtook the most and I did my battle with the second group. Maybe I had something more in the second part of the race compared to Quartararo, Miller and Alex, but Fernandez and I got in each other’s way. We’re improving in each race and maybe it has been so far my best MotoGP weekend, and that only serves as extra motivation ahead of Misano.”
Luca Marini – P11
“The most difficult weekend of the year: we have struggled a lot and I also got a bad start today. A frustrating feeling, because I never had the pace, or the confidence or the acceleration I wanted. I’m sorry, I thought I had the potential for sixth, seventh place, but overall, considering how the GP went, it’s okay. It’s difficult to recover in today’s MotoGP and now we just have to put this race behind us and give it our all at Misano. A message for Pecco too, it doesn’t seem to be anything serious, but it was a really bad crash.”
Marco Bezzecchi – P12
“A race to forget, also due to the Pecco accident, which I hope will recover soon. After the warm up I was happy because with the medium I had found a good compromise for the race. At the start however, I found myself on the ground, I had a big crash and a big pain in my left hand. I tried to restart the bike, but I couldn’t and I had to restart with the second bike which had the soft in front. I gave my all, I tried to do everything possible, the last few laps I was painful a lot. We go home, l will do all the necessary checks and try to move on to Misano, my home race.”
Marc Marquez – P13
“First of all, I am very glad that Pecco and all of the other riders avoided any serious injury. I saw Pecco crash on the opening lap and I immediately did everything I could to make sure I could avoid him. In the race restart I was able to gain a few positions. Then, like yesterday I was very strong at the start but then had to go into a more conservative mode in the second half of the race. In the final races I was focusing on getting the bike home. Now we start thinking about Misano.”
Franco Morbidelli – P14
“I was expecting worse. At the restart, I saw that almost everybody had new tyres and we didn‘t, so I knew already that that was going to be it. I had much less potential than everybody else, but I tried to do the maximum. I arrived close to Marc Marquez, but ultimately it was a race in which I couldn‘t push as much as I wanted to.”
Takaaki Nakagami – P15
“It’s been a crazy Sunday, but the main thing is that the riders that crashed are fine. Today, I’ve managed to score points, and this is important. We are working hard to keep taking steps forward”.
Iker Lecuona – P16
“I’d like to thank the team for the amazing job they did on the grid changing everything on the bike, as that one was ready for wet conditions. Regarding the crash, I didn’t do anything differently, the front end got closed and I ended up on the gravel. After the restart of the race, I pushed and tried my best”.
Joan Mir – P17
“Honestly, I made a good start to the first race and I made up a fair few positions. But unfortunately, the rest of our race was similar to the day before and we struggled for grip. After six or seven laps the tyre dropped a lot and I was worked to finish the race and stay on the bike. I used the time to try some different maps on the bike with this time to see if it changed anything. Avoiding a crash was important and we finished the last laps carefully to head to Misano in as positive a way as possible.”
Brad Binder – DNF
“A crazy afternoon. I had a really good launch but through the exit of Turn 2 I did not see a thing until I arrived to Pecco and his bike in the middle of the track. I clipped something on his bike, went to miss him and couldn’t. I ended up falling. Thank goodness I saw him moving, so I hope he is fine. We restarted the race, and I brought the last tyre we had up to temperature but then we had a technical issue. My only priority today is that I did not seriously hurt anybody. As for the result; it is what it is.”
Francesco Bagnaia – DNF
“It wasn’t a normal high-side and it’s difficult for me now to explain what happened. It was a very strange crash and luckily, I wasn’t seriously hurt. Already on the warm-up lap I realised that I didn’t have much rear grip. Now we will do everything to try to get back on track already in next week’s GP at Misano”.
Pol Espargaro – DNF
“A shame because we had good speed through all the weekend we were performing well but we didn’t have any luck here. We missed Q2 by almost nothing, another rider hit me on Saturday and we lost the wing and then today the technical problem. This sometimes happens and we’ll look forward to Misano which is another track where we can be fast. We’ll try again there.”
Raul Fernandez – DNF
“The beginning of the race was difficult for us. Our start was bad, which we need to improve as I lost a lot of time there. You need to overtake and you lose time and it slows down your pace. But honestly, I’m happy that I managed to save the front tyre, I was preparing for the last part of the race. Our tyre was good but we had this technical issue and I couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, Aprilia did a fantastic job and the factory boys did an amazing race, I’m happy for them as they worked really hard for that. We have their data and when we have two fast riders like them, we can improve and knowing that definitely delights me.”
Team Managers
Massimo Rivola – Aprilia Racing CEO
“First of all, best wishes from all of Aprilia for a fast recovery to Bagnaia and Bastianini. I know they are still undergoing medical checks and I hope that everything works out for the best. As for us, we cannot help but celebrate an extraordinary team result which once again rewards the hard work of the riders, the track staff, and the entire racing department. Against all predictions, we were always the first to believe in our potential, well aware that with dedication and constant commitment, great milestones can be achieved. And we are certain that we gave President Colaninno great joy as well – our number-one fan. Now is the time to celebrate, but from tomorrow morning, we’ll be hard at work again, as always, with our usual Aprilia passion and a pinch of extra euphoria.”
Davide Tardozzi – Ducati Lenovo Team Manager
“Enea suffered a fracture in his left hand and one in his left ankle and both will require surgery. He will have the operations as soon as possible and will certainly have to miss the GP of San Marino and the Rimini Riviera. Despite the bad crash, Pecco did not report any fractures. Together with Enea, he will return to Italy with the team tonight and will try to get back on track already in the next round at Misano.”
Francesco Guidotti – Red Bull KTM Team Manager
“A dramatic day and the most important thing is that nobody was seriously injured. Brad’s bike was damaged and we had to move to the spare bike that suffered a problem that we still need to analyse. A tough situation and a shame because Brad had a good feeling. We are still growing and improving. He was in a good mood because of his competitiveness, even with the hard tire as we did not have a medium back-up option. Anyway, the general picture is positive and our confidence remains high for Misano. Jack started with a completely new setting. We said ‘we have nothing to lose’ and we went for it and after a few laps he was comfortable and started pushing. He recovered and just missed out on maybe two more positions if he knew it was the last lap! He has his feeling back, which is good.”
Massimo Meregalli – Monster Yamaha Team Director
“Red flag situations like the one we had today always add a bit of extra tension, but our riders handled the situation well. They had a good start, especially Fabio. We made some changes to the bike for today, and it helped Fabio battle with other riders. Seventh place, coming from so far down on the grid, is a decent result. Franco unfortunately didn’t have any new rear tyres left for the race, so he restarted with the same tyre. He had an okay start but wasn’t able to push like he wanted. We will have a good look at the data as we prepare for the next round. We will be back in action in Misano next week and that GP will be followed by the Misano Test, so we will gladly make use of all the available track time to make further steps.”
Nicolas Goyon – GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 Team Manager
“Finally we end the weekend on a positive note with Augusto’s result. He had a tough Sprint and we made some modifications to the bike that helped him feel more comfortable. This allowed him to manage the tire and he had a great fight with Di Giannantonio and beat him into the last corner to achieve a P9. Pol had a clutch issue on the restart and we still need to understand what happened. He had the pace to fight for some strong points. A tough GP but we got some good points. Now to Italy for the San Marino GP.”
Razlan Razali – CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team Principal
“I think we can be happy about today. Considering all the misfortunes we’ve been having, this is as normal as we can get. And to be a normal weekend to finish in sixth in the Sprint race and fifth in the main race, we should be happy. Let’s learn from this and focus on the next round and sooner or later we will get there on the podium.”
“For Raul, it’s such an unlucky race with the technical problem, he had the pace and he could have been in the top ten but he had a technical problem with the front device. We’re sorry for him and it’s something we need to look at for the next races. But overall, we should be happy with the results this weekend.”
Wilco Zeelenberg – CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team Manager
“We completed Barcelona with a consistent result for Miguel with sixth and fifth. It’s disappointing for Raul as he was not able to finish the race due to some technical problem with the front device. We need to investigate what really happened. Anyway, he could not avoid it as the front device got locked and so he had to come back to the garage.”
“For Miguel, he had some strong laps in the beginning, we knew he needed to control the pace and stay with the Aprilia boys as it’s a long race. He tried to do that but after six laps, the front dropped and he had to go from 40.5 to 41s too soon and too quickly. Luckily, he was smart enough to continue and finishing in fifth, but it was very hard for him to stay on the bike. So, it was a decent result and a positive race and we hope we can continue like this in Misano.”
Pablo Nieto – VR46 Team Manager
“A really complicated Sunday: the crash at the first start wasn’t needed. Marco managed to restart after a bad crash, but with the second bike where he had the soft tire and not the medium. He tried not to lose too much ground in the first laps and finished very close to the Top10. It is important to have brought home some points. Luca also has struggled, today he finished 11th, a result not to be thrown away considering his qualifying and his feelings throughout the weekend. Let’s go back to the data for the Misano race, an exciting weekend for all of us.”
Piero Taramasso – Michelin
“The challenge of the weekend was undeniably the very poor grip of the track. We had to give our partners as much peace of mind as possible, even though the track had very smooth areas which could lead to slip at the rear, or locking of the front. From Friday, we understood that the Soft compound for the front would be the tyre to be reserved for time attack, in other words for a fairly short period of combat with the stopwatch in order to establish a reference time. But for the Sprint race, like the Grand Prix, we then guided the riders towards the combination of Medium front and Soft rear on Saturday, and to switch to the Medium rear on Sunday – taking into account the number of laps to be completed. The combination of the right choice of tyres, optimum pressures and a pace to maintain the temperature in the tyres allowed everyone to find the best set-up. The evolution of the motorcycles combined with our tyres even made it possible to beat the all-time circuit lap record, although it was a stiff challenge.”
MotoGP Race Results
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Time/Gap |
| 1 | Aleix ESPARGARO | APRILIA | 38m56.159 |
| 2 | Maverick VIÑALES | APRILIA | +0.377 |
| 3 | Jorge MARTIN | DUCATI | +2.831 |
| 4 | Johann ZARCO | DUCATI | +4.867 |
| 5 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | APRILIA | +7.529 |
| 6 | Alex MARQUEZ | DUCATI | +10.590 |
| 7 | Fabio QUARTARARO | YAMAHA | +10.821 |
| 8 | Jack MILLER | KTM | +10.880 |
| 9 | Augusto FERNANDEZ | KTM | +12.889 |
| 10 | Fabio DI GIANNANTONIO | DUCATI | +13.280 |
| 11 | Luca MARINI | DUCATI | +16.491 |
| 12 | Marco BEZZECCHI | DUCATI | +16.561 |
| 13 | Marc MARQUEZ | HONDA | +21.616 |
| 14 | Franco MORBIDELLI | YAMAHA | +23.108 |
| 15 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | HONDA | +26.740 |
| 16 | Iker LECUONA | HONDA | +28.860 |
| 17 | Joan MIR | HONDA | +33.929 |
| Not Classified | |||
| DNF | Raul FERNANDEZ | APRILIA | 13 laps |
| DNF | Brad BINDER | KTM | 20 laps |
| DNF | Pol ESPARGARO | KTM | 22 laps |
| DNF | Francesco BAGNAIA | DUCATI | / |
| DNF | Enea BASTIANINI | DUCATI | / |
MotoGP Max Speeds Across Race Weekend
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Speed |
| 1 | Aleix ESPARGARO | APRILIA | 356.4 |
| 2 | Jack MILLER | KTM | 355.2 |
| 3 | Marco BEZZECCHI | DUCATI | 355.2 |
| 4 | Jorge MARTIN | DUCATI | 355.2 |
| 5 | Luca MARINI | DUCATI | 354.0 |
| 6 | Brad BINDER | KTM | 354.0 |
| 7 | Enea BASTIANINI | DUCATI | 354.0 |
| 8 | Pol ESPARGARO | KTM | 354.0 |
| 9 | Francesco BAGNAIA | DUCATI | 352.9 |
| 10 | Alex MARQUEZ | DUCATI | 351.7 |
| 11 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | APRILIA | 351.7 |
| 12 | Johann ZARCO | DUCATI | 351.7 |
| 13 | Marc MARQUEZ | HONDA | 351.7 |
| 14 | Maverick VIÑALES | APRILIA | 351.7 |
| 15 | Franco MORBIDELLI | YAMAHA | 351.7 |
| 16 | Fabio QUARTARARO | YAMAHA | 350.6 |
| 17 | Raul FERNANDEZ | APRILIA | 350.6 |
| 18 | Joan MIR | HONDA | 350.6 |
| 19 | Fabio DI GIANNANTONIO | DUCATI | 349.5 |
| 20 | Augusto FERNANDEZ | KTM | 349.5 |
| 21 | Iker LECUONA | HONDA | 348.3 |
| 22 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | HONDA | 346.1 |
MotoGP Championship Points
| Pos | Rider | Points |
| 1 | Bagnaia | 260 |
| 2 | Martin | 210 |
| 3 | Bezzecchi | 189 |
| 4 | Binder | 166 |
| 5 | Espargaro | 154 |
| 6 | Zarco | 141 |
| 7 | Marini | 125 |
| 8 | Viñales | 113 |
| 9 | Miller | 104 |
| 10 | Marquez | 102 |
| 11 | Quartararo | 82 |
| 12 | Morbidelli | 67 |
| 13 | Fernandez | 58 |
| 14 | Oliveira | 55 |
| 15 | Rins | 47 |
| 16 | Di Giannantonio | 43 |
| 17 | Nakagami | 35 |
| 18 | Bastianini | 25 |
| 19 | Marquez | 22 |
| 20 | Fernandez | 14 |
| 21 | Pedrosa | 13 |
| 22 | Savadori | 9 |
| 23 | Folger | 9 |
| 24 | Espargaro | 8 |
2023 MotoGP Calendar
| Rnd | Date | Location |
| 13 | Sep-10 | San Marino, Misano |
| 14 | Sep-24 | India, Buddh (Subject to homologation) |
| 15 | Oct-01 | Japan, Motegi |
| 16 | Oct-15 | Indonesia, Mandalika |
| 17 | Oct-22 | Australia, Phillip Island |
| 18 | Oct-29 | Thailand, Chang |
| 19 | Nov-12 | Malaysia, Sepang |
| 20 | Nov-19 | Qatar, Lusail |
| 21 | Nov-26 | Valenciana, Valencia |
