Ai Ogura: Aprilia’s secret winner, yet not thrilled with fourth place

Japan’s MotoGP star Ai Ogura had squandered even greater chances of success on Friday with a crash and a failure to qualify directly for Q2. The fact that she still managed to finish second in the sprint was down less to her speed than to the number of riders dropping out. Nevertheless, Ogura managed to make up some places.

On Sunday, history repeated itself – but Raul Fernandez and Marco Bezzecchi stayed in the race. Fourth place was almost the logical outcome. The race was by no means a dull affair, as the Japanese rider had to work his way past Alex Márquez, Di Giannantonio, Acosta and even Marc Márquez. These fellow MotoGP riders made things even harder for Ogura in the final stages, as Acosta deliberately dropped back before launching another attack.

The mock duel felt very real to Ogura, as the rider reported after the GP: “To me, it looked like a one-on-one battle.” Although Ai Ogura crossed the line in fourth place, completing Aprilia’s one-two-three-four finish – and thereby overtaking Pedro Acosta to move up to fourth in the World Championship standings – Ogura’s enthusiasm remained muted.

The ambitious rider from Tokyo summed it up: “In the end, I was still the slowest Aprilia rider.” It was a bitter pill to swallow: although Ogura had started from ninth on the grid, he was the only RS-GP rider not to be invited to the podium ceremony. Ogura was well aware of the reasons: “Even though there were improvements, overall I wasn’t able to get the most out of it at Mandalika. I’m really pleased with the middle of the race; everything came together very well there. But I have to be honest: even with that, I wouldn’t have been able to do better than fourth place, because we didn’t find the best set-up at the start. The crash had no impact on the result.”

Before the GP, Ai Ogura was fifth in the standings, just one point behind Pedro Acosta. Did the Trackhouse rider have the KTM frontrunner specifically in his sights? Ogura denied it: “I knew I was right behind Pedro in the World Championship, but I wasn’t focused on beating him in particular. I just wanted to make up as many places as possible.”

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A small consolation for the future Yamaha works rider. In the overall standings, Ai Ogura remains well ahead of his team-mate Raul Fernandez, who is seventh. However, he trails third-placed Bezzecchi – the GP winner – by 50 points.

Willkommen zum Rennen in Mandalika

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Pedro Acosta

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Alex Márquez

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Marco Bezzecchi

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Marc Márquez

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Start des Rennens

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Jorge Martin

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Ai Ogura und Pedro Acosta

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Luca Marini

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Raúl Fernández

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Marco Bezzecchi

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Quartararo und Binder

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Ai Ogura und Marc Márquez

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Enea Bastianini

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Alex Márquez und Fabio Di Giannantonio

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Marc Márquez und Pedro Acosta

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Marco Bezzecchi gewinnt das Rennen

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Sieger Marco Bezzecchi

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Fernández, Bezzecchi, Martin

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Sieger Marco Bezzecchi

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Willkommen zum Rennen in Mandalika

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