MotoGP Argentina results, Grand Prix - First wet race delivers historic result

The 2023 MotoGP World Championship heads to Argentina this weekend for the second round of the season at the Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo. Check this page throughout the weekend for MotoGP Argentina results.

Overview

Grand Prix - Bezzecchi takes first MotoGP win as Bagnaia crashes out

Sprint - Brad Binder puts KTM on-top for the first time in 2023

Qualifying - Alex Marquez secures first MotoGP pole position in wet-dry Argentina qualifying

Practice 2 - Aprilia maintains its dominance, Quartararo continues to struggle

Practice 1 - Vinales kicks off Argentinian weekend on top

Grand Prix

The 2022 MotoGP Argentinian Grand Prix, round two of the 2023 MotoGP World Championship, was the first race of the season to take place in wet conditions. Marco Bezzecchi took the victory, and two other satellite Ducati riders finished on the podium. 

Starting from pole position, Alex Marquez went slightly backwards, as Marco Bezzecchi took the holeshot and Marquez slotted in behind him, and ahead of Francesco Bagnaia, who maintained third place at the start.

The front four - Bezzecchi, Marquez, Bagnaia, and Franco Morbidelli - began to escape by the end of the second lap. Behind Morbidelli, there were 1.5 seconds behind to Johann Zarco, who led a tough battle for fifth early on. 

By the end of lap seven, Bezzecchi really found some pace, and extended his lead to over 1.5 seconds, and then to over two seconds.

At the end of lap 15, by which time Bezzecchi was over five seconds in the lead, Bagnaia passed Marquez for second. It appeared that Bagnaia had found himself with more rear grip compared to his Spanish rival as they entered the final 10 laps of the race.

Marquez was back into second place only a couple of laps after he first lost it, as Bagnaia crashed, and retired soon after, on lap 17 in the penultimate corner. In some ways it was an uncharacteristic mistake, one which Bagnaia seemed to eradicate from his game in the second half of 2022. On the other hand, it seemed a reminder of the route Bagnaia took to being 91 points behind the championship leader after eight races last year. 

Bagnaia’s crash put Morbidelli provisionally on the podium. But he was not safe, as Johann Zarco - as he had done at the previous wet MotoGP race in Thailand last year - came on strong at the end of the race, and began closing on both Morbidelli and Marquez.

With three laps to go, Morbidelli lost his podium position as he ran wide in turn seven, and allowed Zarco through. The #5’s job was not yet done, though, as second place was still a possibility.

Zarco made his move on Marquez on the final lap, but as such had no time to chase Bezzecchi, who secured his and the Mooney VR46 Racing Team’s first MotoGP Grand Prix victory, and sent himself to the top of the Riders’ standings by nine points, as the only rider to have finished in the top three in more than two races in 2023.

Bezzecchi’s lead was at one point over seven seconds, although he backed it off in the final laps, and finished just four seconds ahead of Zarco.

Alex Marquez held on for second place in the final lap, his first podium since Aragon 2020 and his first with Gresini Ducati, although he could not retaliate against Zarco, similarly to Morbidelli, who replicated his Sprint result of fourth place.

Jorge Martin looked to be struggling early on, but put on a kind of ‘Zarco-lite’ wet weather comeback to finish fifth, ahead of Jack Miller and Fabio Quartararo, who might have been in the top five had he not been pushed wide by Takaaki Nakagami early on.

Luca Marini was eighth, while the top 10 was rounded out by Alex Rins and Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Brad Binder’s hopes of an Argentinian ‘double’ were dashed on the first lap, when he crashed due to contact with Maverick Vinales in turn five. He finished the race in 17th, just behind the remounted Bagnaia. 

Vinales, on the other hand, was the top Aprilia, but also only 12th. His factory teammate, Aleix Espargaro, took the final point in 15th, and the sole satellite RNF Aprilia of Raul Fernandez was 14th. Considering the speed of the RS-GPs in the dry, the result was undoubtedly disappointing.

Full MotoGP Argentina results from the Grand Prix in Termas de Rio Hondo are below.

2023 Argentinian Grand Prix | Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo | Grand Prix Results

Sprint

After a wet-but-drying qualifying, conditions had stabilised in Termas de Rio Hondo, and the MotoGP Sprint of the Argentinian Grand Prix took place in dry conditions. Alex Marquez started from pole position for the first time in the premier class, but it was Brad Binder who finished the 12-lap race on-top.

Alex Marquez made the holeshot from pole position, while Portimao Sprint winner Francesco Bagnaia went backwards to seventh, and Franco Morbidelli led the first lap after passing Marquez.

Brad Binder then took the lead on lap three of what was immediately a brutal Sprint, with a front group of nine, tailed by Jorge Martin.

Despite the chaos from fourth place backwards, Brad Binder had relative serenity at the front. With 0.4 seconds behind him to a resolute Franco Morbidelli, Binder had little to worry about, seemingly.

But, with three laps to go, Morbidelli was replaced by the VR46 Ducati duo of Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi. That pair swapped places at turn five on lap 12, as Bezzecchi went on in search of leader Binder.

It came down to a last-lap duel between Bezzecchi and Binder, which in the end went the way of the South African, who won from 15th on the grid, despite continuing problems with his neck.

Bezzecchi’s second place makes him only the second rider this season to take two podium finishes, after Francesco Bagnaia’s double-win in Portugal, while Luca Marini made it a VR46 Ducati 2-3, his third place representing a rebound from a difficult opening weekend of the season in Portimao.

Franco Morbidelli has had a generally terrible time at the factory Yamaha team since he joined it in the middle of 2021. Finally, he got a strong result, with a fourth place in the Argentinian Sprint. He lay second for much of the race, but faded towards the end when the VR46 pair came through. 

Alex Marquez struggled for the entire second half of the race to find a way past Francesco Bagnaia, only for the door to be opened for him by a failed last-lap attempt from the reigning World Champion to pass Morbidelli. 

Fifth for Marquez meant sixth for Bagnaia, who seemed to struggle with rear grip, both on corner entry and exit, from start-to-finish. Considering Bagnaia’s strong qualifying, and the risks he took to achieve it, it was surprising to see him drop back.

Maverick Vinales was similarly disappointing to Bagnaia, finishing seventh and spending most of his time fighting with his Aprilia teammate, Aleix Espargaro, who in the end crashed.

Vinales finished seventh, just over one second ahead of Jorge Martin, who was able to beat Fabio Quartararo for eighth, while the #20 secured the final point in ninth. Jack Miller completed the top 10.

Joan Mir crashed early in the Sprint. He was taken to the circuit medical centre, and then to hospital on Saturday afternoon. Mir returned to the circuit on Saturday night, but was declared unfit on Sunday morning due to head and spinal trauma. Mir's withdrawal from the Argentinian Grand Prix means there will be only 17 starters for the second full-length race of the 2023 MotoGP World Championship.

Full MotoGP results from the Argentina Sprint are below.

2023 Argentinian Grand Prix | Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo | Sprint Results

Qualifying

Rain both overnight and in the minutes before qualifying meant for a part-dry-part-wet track in MotoGP qualifying for the Argentinian Grand Prix. Alex Marquez dealt with the conditions best, as he took pole position.

During the FP session, more rain began to fall, but by the beginning of Q1, the conditions were sketchy and unpredictable, but on the edge between wet and slick tyres. 

In the end, everyone went with wets from the off in Q1, apart from Raul Fernandez, who gave up on his slicks before setting a lap time, and swapped to wets.

The conditions proved to be exactly what Fabio Quartararo needed. He could not do better than 14th on Friday in the dry, but got through from Q1 in second place behind Alex Marquez, whose Q1 ended with a crash, and subsequent breakdown, which obviously compromised his Q2, for which he only had one bike. 

Johann Zarco set the early pace in Q2, going immediately faster than anyone went in Q1 and dipping into the 1:46s. 

With just under five minutes to go, the slicks began to be applied. First was Marco Bezzecchi, then came Francesco Bagnaia, and then Alex Marquez, while Jorge Martin stuck with slick tyres for his second run.

Slicks proved to be the right call in the end, and it was Alex Marquez who made the most of them, to take his first-ever MotoGP pole position, ahead of Marco Bezzecchi (2nd) and Francesco Bagnaia (3rd).

Franco Morbidelli was the fastest rider with wet tyres in fourth place, while Maverick Vinales (5th) and early pace-setter Johann Zarco (6th) will join the Italian on row two for this weekend’s two races. Luca Marini will head up the third row in seventh, ahead of Jorge Martin (8th) and Aleix Espargaro (9th); and Fabio Quartararo completes the top 10 on the grid, to be joined by the two LCR Honda riders, Takaaki Nakagami (11th) and Alex Rins (12th), on the fourth row.

Full MotoGP Argentina results from qualifying at the Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo are below.

2023 Argentinian Grand Prix | Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo | Qualifying Results

Practice 2

The second practice session for MotoGP continued the weather theme from the first session, with cloudy skies reigning overhead, but with no precipitation to concern the riders at any point. Aleix Espargaro made the most of the combination of a dry track and medium-compound Michelin tyres to finish Friday in Argentina on-top.

With the absence of the old FP4 session from the weekend format in 2023, Practice 2 is now the only time for the teams and riders to really get a feel for, and understanding of, race tyres at a time of day representative of the Grand Prix. 

As a result, most of the hour-long P2 is now quite slow-paced, with riders just running on used tyres, trying to understand which tyre is the best option for the race, and how to get the best out of it. 

Alex Rins topped FP2 for over half of it. Rins is a great rider, of course, and won two of the final three races of the 2022 MotoGP season, but the 2023 Honda RC213V is not a motorcycle he is yet completely comfortable with, nor is it one that should be realistically be topping practice sessions. 

So, it was no surprise when Jorge Martin finally displaced Rins, and then bettered his own time with just over 15 minutes left to go. The #89’s laps had indicated the beginning of the time attack period of the session, with riders now discarding race preparation in favour of finding a lap time fast enough to get themselves into the overall top 10, and therefore into Q2.

Despite the strong pace of both Aprilia riders, Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro, throughout both P1 and P2, it was Ducati’s lone factory rider in Argentina, Francesco Bagnaia, who was the first rider into the 1:38s this weekend.

Vinales, though, soon joined Bagnaia in the sub-1:39 category, taking over the top spot briefly, before Marco Bezzecchi fired the #72 VR46 Ducati GP22 to the top.

In the end, Aprilia re-established themselves, with Aleix Espargaro taking the top spot ahead of Maverick Vinales. Marco Bezzecchi was the top Ducati, at the head of a train of five Desmosedici machines lined up behind the RS-GPs.

First up behind Bezzecchi was Luca Marini, before Johann Zarco on the top-placed 2023-sped Desmosedici; then came Francesco Bagnaia in sixth place, ahead of Jorge Martin, who was the top-placed rider to miss the 1:38 mark - albeit by only 0.006 seconds. 

Takaaki Nakagami was the top non-Italian bike in eighth, as well as the top Honda as he was in the morning. Franco Morbidelli impressed, meanwhile, in ninth place, beating his Yamaha teammate, Fabio Quartararo, relatively comfortably, and Alex Rins ensured by LCR Hondas will be in Q2 tomorrow with the tenth-fastest time. 

The top-placed KTM overnight in Argentina is Brad Binder in 12th, while the aforementioned Quartararo could only manage 14th-fastest, and 2020 World Champion, Joan Mir, the only representative for Repsol Honda this weekend, was only one place better than Quartararo, Mir setting the 13th-best time.

Full MotoGP Argentina results from the combined practice times on Friday are below.

2023 Argentinian Grand Prix | Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo | Combined FP Results

Practice 1

Practice 1 in Argentina for the second round of the 2023 MotoGP World Championship took place under the threat of rain, which hampered the beginning of the preceding Moto2 first practice. The track was dry by the end of the aforementioned Moto2 session, but the clouds remained present over the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit as the MotoGP bikes hit the track for the first time.

Takaaki Nakagami led the opening part of the session. The Termas track is notoriously lacking in grip, especially in the first sessions of the weekend, because of the lack of running the track sees outside of the MotoGP weekend. Clearly, Nakagami found a good feeling with the Honda RC213V in the low-grip conditions.

Aprilia had the bike to beat in Termas in 2022, and proved it with Aleix Espargaro’s victory. Into the final 20 minutes of Practice 1, Aprilia hit the top, first with Maverick Vinales, and then with Aleix Espargaro, before Vinales’ replacement at Yamaha, Franco Morbidelli, put the #21 YZR-M1 on-top just seconds after Espargaro’s lap.

Vinales returned to first position soon after, ending Morbidelli’s time at the top, and with the hard compound rear tyre the Aprilia riders were making clear that they had the superior package out-of-the-box in Argentina. 

In the final 10 minutes, the time attacks began. Since there are only two rear compounds per track in 2023, the softest compound in Argentina this weekend is the medium-compound, not the soft. 

Once again, it was Maverick Vinales who proved the most effective, topping P1 by 0.284 seconds, ahead of his Aprilia teammate, Aleix Espargaro, and Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin in third. 

Takaaki Nakagami was the top Honda in fourth, ahead of three consecutive Ducati riders, with Alex Marquez in fifth, ahead of Johann Zarco and Luca Marini. 

Franco Morbidelli was the top Yamaha rider in ninth, ahead of two more Ducatis, as Marco Bezzecchi set the ninth-fastest time, and Portimao double-winner Francesco Bagnaia was 10th.

The major surprise was Fabio Quartararo, who finished P1 in 15th, 0.909 seconds behind Vinales. Similarly Joan Mir was slowest of the 18 MotoGP riders, 1.458 seconds behind Vinales. The top-placed KTM rider was the Tech3 GasGas of Augusto Fernandez in 13th.

Full MotoGP Argentina results from Practice 1 in Termas are below.

2023 Argentinian Grand Prix | Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo | P1 Results

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