Runaway Phillip Island sprint winner Jorge Martin has admitted it was “a relief” to discover that Marc Marquez had lost ground at the first corner and was thus unlikely to be a threat in the 13-lap race.

The Gresini Ducati rider quickly recovered from running wide at Doohan, making it back to second place on lap eight. But Pramac Ducati’s Martin was already three seconds ahead by then with more than half the race gone.

While the crowd was thus robbed of a battle between the two riders who had qualified first and second and who had been the class of the field in Australia so far, polesitter Martin certainly wasn’t complaining.

“I already knew before the race that Marc was [my toughest opponent]. I didn’t know what had happened to him but I saw Bezzecchi behind me at the beginning,” he said.

“This was a relief because I knew that if Marc was behind [me] it would have been a different story. Because he was able to keep the same pace as mine.”

The fastest lap times bore out Martin’s opinion, with Marquez’s best within a tenth of his 1m27.831s mark. Only one other rider, Fabio di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati), was able to post a lap faster than 1m28s.

Martin believes a stronger showing by Marquez in Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix could have its benefits.

“We will see tomorrow. If he’s that strong [again], maybe he can go into the lead and that could maybe also be good for me. Because I could follow him and try something at the end,” he said.

Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing, Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Martin admitted to learning a lot from following Marquez at the last event in Japan. In addition, the special nature of the Phillip Island circuit – particularly the difficulty of getting heat into the front tyre – means sitting behind another rider is not as costly as it is at some other venues.

Marquez explained after the race that his problems in the first corner began with a miscalculation of Martin’s braking point.

“Jorge braked super aggressively to disengage the front device. I didn’t calculate this correctly. I almost touched him,” said the six-time MotoGP champion.

“When I reacted it was too late. So I went wide. That small mistake, plus the wind, plus the dirty track out wide, cost me a lot of positions.

“It also cost me the opportunity to fight for first position, but honestly speaking Jorge was a bit faster than me.

“Let’s see if we can avoid that [first corner] mistake tomorrow and fight with him!”

Second place ahead of factory Ducati rider Enea Bastianini nonetheless moved Marquez from fourth in the points standings into a tie for third with the Italian.

With the sprint victory, Martin stretched his advantage over Francesco Bagnaia at the top of the points table to 16.

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

Race 1 winner Eric Cheung dominated proceedings once again at Imola to take another win in the second and final encounter of the 2024 Ferrari Challenge Coppa Shell AM season. The Canadian, at the wheel of a Ferrari 296 of the Formula Racing team, got off to a perfect start from pole position and powered his way towards victory right from the early laps.

Cheung immediately pulled out a gap over his rivals and took the chequered flag at the end of the 30-minute race with a comfortable advantage of almost 10 seconds on the first of his opponents.

The racing was a lot more exciting behind Cheung as there was a three-way battle between the 2024 Coppa Shell AM champion, Zois Skrimpias from Greece and the Italians Paolo Scudieri and Andrea Levy.
Skrimpias did well to climb from sixth to second place in the early stages of the race, with Paolo Scudieri doing the same thing, latching himself onto the tail of the 296 of the Ineco – Reparto Corse RAM team.

Exactly halfway through the race, Scudieri made the decisive overtake to move up to second, and then a few moments later, on lap 15, Skrimpias went off the track due to a contact with Andrea Levy’s Ferrari.
Rossocorsa team’s Italian thus moved up to third place, with Skrimpias slipping back to sixth once again, more than 15 seconds behind the race leader.

In this way, the Greek missed an opportunity to get on the podium, although he had already looked to be in clear difficulty for several laps against both Scudieri and Levy.

A few minutes after the contact, Race Direction began to assess Levy’s move on Skrimpias, and an inevitable 10-second penalty for the Rossocorsa driver would be added to his final time.
Skrimpias, once he got back into the swing of things, managed to make a comeback on Guy Fawe and Henrik Kamstrup, who were battling for fourth, but without having any real opportunity to get into the fight.

With just moments to go, Andreas Koenig and Norikazu Shibata made contact, with the latter coming off worse and slipping to ninth while battling for seventh. Sandmann finished the race between the two, while Shintaro Akatsu completed the Top 10.

Ferrari Challenge – Shell AM Europe – Race 2 classification

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

Porsche looks set to take up the extra entry for the Le Mans 24 Hours it gained for winning the IMSA SportsCar Championship crown at Road Atlanta last weekend. 

Thomas Laudenbach, boss of Porsche Motorsport, told Autosport/Motorsport.com that it “absolutely makes sense” for the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport squad to run a third 963 LMDh in the double-points round of the World Endurance Championship in addition to its two full-season entries. 

At the same time he stressed that no final decision has been made on the additional car.

Porsche successfully applied to have an extra factory 963 on the Le Mans grid in 2023 and ’24, but for next year it has the additional entry guaranteed after securing the IMSA GTP title with the #7 car driven by Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron at the Petit Le Mans 10-hour race that closed out the season last Saturday. 

“It is not decided yet, but it is more likely we will run the three, especially now we have the entry,” said Laudenbach. 

“You need budget for that, but we all know how quickly a car can be taken out of the race at Le Mans. 

“That is why we have done it with three for the past two years and why there is a good chance we will do it with three again.”

#7 Team Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Dane Cameron, Felipe Nasr

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

Porsche looks set to go into the Le Mans WEC round next June with a reduced contingent of cars in the Hypercar class even if it decides that PPM will field a trio of cars for the third year in succession.

The customer Jota team, which is running two Porsches in Hypercar this year, will switch over to Cadillac in 2025 when it becomes the General Motors brand’s factory representative in place of Chip Ganassi Racing.

Even if Proton Competition, the second customer team running the 963 in WEC, expands to two cars, Porsche’s full-season representation in WEC looks certain to be reduced from five to four cars. 

Laudenbach confirmed that an announcement of PPM’s 2025 driver line-ups across its world championship and North American campaigns will be made before the conclusion of the WEC season.

“There will be an announcement before the race in Bahrain [on 2 November],” he said. 

With that news imminent, it appears unlikely that a decision on the third car at Le Mans will be made in time for its drivers to be included in the announcement.

IMSA is allowed to award three entries for the Le Mans WEC blue riband round in June by race organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. 

One of these so-called ‘at-large entries’ goes to the winning car in the GTP teams’ championship, which was won by the #7 PPM entry of drivers’ title winners Nasr and Cameron. 

The winners of the Jim Trueman and Bob Akin Awards gain the other two. 

These awards go to a bronze-ranked driver competing in LMP2 and GT Daytona respectively based on a separate classification to the main class championships. 

Nick Boulle, who also won the LMP2 title with Tom Dillmann at Inter Europol by PR1/Mathiasen, and Orey Fidani, who raced with Matt Bell at the AWA Chevrolet team, claimed the two awards and therefore an automatic Le Mans entry each.