Repsol Honda rider Marc Marquez produced another faultless display to beat out Fabio Quartararo for victory in Thailand, crowning the Spaniard MotoGP World Champion for a sixth time.
Quartararo enjoyed a lightning fast start, leading off the line and for the majority of the race, but the Spaniard sat behind him from the halfway point of the race, never more than a tenth behind the rear end of the satellite M1.
Marquez sat up and waited for the perfect time to make his move past the Frenchman, stalking and measuring his opponent. Marquez made the move past Quartararo going into turn two on the final lap, using his top speed advantage. Quartararo battled back and sat on the rear wheel of Marquez through the final lap, before making his move in the final corner. Marquez knew it was coming and squared off the corner, out-dragging Quartararo to the line, leaving him with no chance to fight back, leaving Marquez to claim his ninth victory of 2019.
With the win, Marquez’ claims his sixth MotoGP World Championship in seven years, and his eighth World Championship across all classes. Marquez’ remarkable consistency has seen him finish either first nine times, second five times and lower than that just once, when he made a mistake whilst leading by a country mile in Texas. 2019 showed Marquez’ supreme talent and maturity, leaving a lot of the field wondering if there is any way to beat the Spaniard in the coming years.
Behind the front two, it was more of the same for Maverick Vinales who was third. The factory Yamaha man got away with the front two, but when the pace heated up, Vinales couldn’t go with the front two. After a five or six lap stint where he dropped back all of three seconds, Vinales suddenly got his pace back. Pulling in the odd tenth each lap, Vinales closed in on the front two, but it wasn’t enough to challenge for victory.
Andrea Dovizioso benefitted from the power of his GP19, holding off Alex Rins for fourth place. The Suzuki man appeared to have the greater speed across the lap, but the sheer power of the Ducati left the Suzuki man unable to make a move past.
Franco Morbidelli was sixth on his Petronas Yamaha, with Joan Mir, Valentino Rossi, Danilo Petrucci and Taka Nakagami rounding out the top ten.
