Enea Bastianini says he was “to𒁏o late” to fight with Marc Marquez for the final podium spot at the MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix.

The factory Ducati rider had a scrappy opening lap at Motegi on Sunday in🌺 the 24-lap grand prix and dropped to seventh having started fourth on the grid.

Bastianini cleared KTM’s Jack Miller on lap three but couldn’t get past his team-mate Brad Binder until the tenth tour, having tried and failed the p📖♐revious lap.

Once ahea⛄d of Binder, Bastianini had a 2.5-second gap to Marquez i🍸n third to close but could do nothing to get ahead of the Gresini rider.

“Not happy,” Bastianini said of his Japanese GP.

“I’m not happy because after the overtake of Bran on the first lap, I lost many p𒁏ositions.

“And I arrived at Turn 11 with a lot of turbulence. It was impossible for me to brake hard and also Ja𝔉ck overtook me.

“After, trying to overta꧟ke other KTMs is not easy. You🧸 need some laps.

“Then, I realised this objective but wasꦿ too late because the gap to Marc was too big to try to fight for the podium. In the end, I was so close to him but not to fight.”

Bastianini ultimately finished 0.536s behind Marquez at the chequered flag, but was in🌠 reality 0.03✱6s away from ending up on the podium.

Marquez exceeded track limits on the final lap at Turn𓂃 4, but the stewards consider a closely contested battle to be a gap of 0.5s or lower.

Therefore, Marquez was deemed not to have gained an a♌dvantage by exceeding track limits a𒆙nd held onto his podium.

Bastianini remains third in the champi💧onship, but Marquez’s brace of podiums at Motegi means the eight-time world champion is now just two points behind the factory Ducati rider.

“Now I’m always fighting for the podiums and this is impo♕🍸rtant to me,” Bastianini added.

“But sometimes you have to be lucky aജnd on Sunday in Motegi we didn’t have it. But youꦬ have to accept it.”

Bastianini’s team-mate Francesco Bagnaia won the grand prix at Motegi on Sunday to close Jorge Martin’s championship lead down to 10 points with just four rounds remaining in 2024.