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Acosta wins season-opening MotoGP sprint after Marquez penalty / Photo: © AFP
Acosta wins season-opening MotoGP sprint after Marquez penalty
Pedro Acosta won the season-opening MotoGP sprint in Thailand on Saturday after defending champion Marc Marquez was forced to drop a place because of a penalty.
Ducati's Marquez is chasing a record-equalling eighth world title and he looked like picking up another sprint victory in Buriram when pole-sitter Marco Bezzecchi crashed on the second lap.
But Acosta forced his fellow Spaniard into a huge battle and came away with the win when Marquez was penalised for a late illegal move.
Acosta finished 0.108sec ahead of Marquez to claim his first sprint win, with Trackhouse's Raul Fernandez taking third.
Bezzecchi went into the sprint in red-hot form, having topped the timesheets in all three practices and finishing first in qualifying.
But there had also been warning signs, with the Italian suffering a heavy crash at the end of qualifying.
Marquez started from second on the grid and he went toe to toe with Bezzecchi until the Italian wiped out on just the second lap.
Acosta, who started from sixth on the grid, moved up to challenge Marquez and they continued to joust until Marquez's late illegal move settled the result.
Trackhouse's Ai Ogura finished fourth, with Aprilia's Jorge Martin fifth and KTM's Brad Binder sixth.
F. Burkhard--BTZ
