Sunday’s San Marino MotoGP round was one of those funny weekends when many thousands of man (and woman) hours of riding, engineering, spannering and data-logging are swept into the bin of irrelevance by a few drops of rain. Your occasional reminder that nature is still in charge.
The Misano weather turned the 2024 MotoGP title fight on its head: a disaster for championship leader Jorge Martin, a blessing for title outsider Marc Márquez and neither one nor the other for reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia.
Winner Márquez suggested that the Gresini team’s late team boss – twice 125cc world champ Fausto Gresini – was the heavenly force that had sprinkled the track with rain, gifting him a victory chance that seemed gone when he crashed in qualifying, putting himself on the third row.
