Franceco Bagnaia takes crucial ninth victory of the season ahead of Jorge Martin in tricky wet conditions

The rain had fallen at the Chang International Circuit and it was the first wet race of the season and first since the Argentinian GP in 2023. Francesco Bagnaia started from pole position and he needed to be Jorge Martin in increase his championship hopes, Tissot Sprint winner Enea Bastianini started in second with championship leader Martin in third. Marc Marquez was a favourite in these conditions and he started from fifth.

The lights went out and Martin took the holeshot ahead of Pecco Bagnaia, Martin ran wide at turn three and Pecco took the lead but Martin got the run down the straight and retook the lead and squeezed Pecco up against the white line.

Pedro Acosta who was running in fourth place out-braked himself and ran wide at turn three and dropped to seventh.

Brad Binder an Fabio Quartararo were side-by-side in the third sector fighting for fourth place.

Jack Miller was the fastest rider on lap three and he was in eighth place, Marco Bezzecchi was the first rider to go down and he lost the front at turn one.

Franky Morbidelli tried to the pass Quartararo at turn eight and the Italian just smacked into the side of the Frenchman and Quartararo was out. Morbidelli was given a long lap penalty for the incident.

Martin ran wide at turn three and dropped to third place behind Marquez and Bagnaia inherited the lead of the race.

Both TrackHouse Aprilias had crashed out by lap seven, Morbidelli was the fastest rider on track in the 1:39a compared to the leaders in the 1:40s.

Morbidelli lost the front at turn eight on lap eight. Miller was now into fourth place, Acosta lost the front at turn one but he saved it.

Bastianini went down at turn eight on lap nine from seventh place. Marquez passed Bagnaia into the final corner but he ran wide and Pecco retook the lead. Martin was now the fastest on circuit but he ran wide at turn four.

Marquez tried again to pass Pecco into the final corner but ran slightly wide and Pecco retook the lead to start the second half of the race.

Marc Marquez lost the front at turn eight, he nearly saved it but couldn’t, that meant Pecco had a 2.5 second lead over Martin. Jack Miller was running in the podium places with Binder in fourth and Acosta in fifth. Miller was two seconds behind Martin. Marquez rejoined in 16th place and was 24 seconds behind the leader.

With five laps to go Acosta passed Binder into turn five for fourth place and set his sights on Miller for third. Pecco had a 3.1 second lead.

Marquez rode into the side of Joan Mir to move into 14th as Alex Rins also went down at turn four, Marquez had to give back the position.

Acosta was on the back of Miller and Fabio Di Giannantonio passed Binder, Miller and Acosta were side-by-side from turn three to seven with Acosta just coming out on top and Di Giannantonio was in the fight too.

Di Giannantonio was able to turn underneath Miller at turn three on the final lap as the Australian went wide, Miller tried to hold it around the outside but the Italian held him off.

Bagnaia crossed the line to win the Grand Prix of Thailand and he was absolutely thrilled with it, tapping the tank of his Ducati GP24. Martin took home second which is what he needed to do and Acosta took third, his first finish since his second place at Indonesia.

Martin leads Bagnaia by 17 points into Malaysia with no-one else able to win the title.

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