After an opening lap bike swap, Ma💜rtin and Bagnaia took over first an♏d second places on lap 6 at Motegi.

Marquez meanwhile yo-yoed between second and sixth places before🍒 reeling in the leaders as the rain intensified.

The Repsol Honda rider then claimed his first♐ Sunday podium of the season by passing Marco Bezzecchi on lap 12 and was closing on Bagnaia and Martin ahead.

Marquez looked to have a real chance of ending his two-year victory ‘drought’ but he signalled the conditions had become too dangerous just as red 🤪flags were waved a lap later.

The early end confirmed𝓀 victory for M♈artin, who is now just three points behind Bagnaia.

“Massive race from these two guys that are fighting in the championship. It’s not easy to take the risks they t🥂ook,” Marquez said.

“Amazing. I know what it’𝓀s like when you are fighting for a championship in these kind of conditions. Massive respect.

“They did a very good race. They are fighting. They have this extra concentration, extra push. It w༺as nice to see the battle of these two guys from the back!”

Turning to his own achievement, Marquez said:

“Of course, it was an important podium.🌸 We were looking for it for all the season. It arrived very late, but arr🌄ived in Honda’s home circuit in a day that I took profit from the weather conditions,” he said.

“In the beginning I was struggling a little bit too much, but then I was trying to manage the tire. Then when the track was in real wet🤡 conditions, I started to attack and be faster and faster.”

Despite such 𒁃speed in the wet, Marquez fully supported the ༺decision not to restart.

"Race Directi꧟on was so clever today. They took the best decisions. Before the restart, check on the warm-up lap to see how was the visibility. They saw that with a lot of bikes it was impossible. And also the light was very low. It was raining less and there was less water on the track, but even like this, it was too much. They did a perfect ꦏjob today."

The pair of third pla🥃ces at Mo🌸tegi followed a competitive weekend in India, but Marquez played down hopes of a sudden change in form for Honda over the remaining six rounds.

“No. I would like to say yes, but India and here are [slow] corners, where I can take a risk on the brake poin🍒t, turn and make a massi🐓ve pickup to have a good acceleration," Marquez explained.

“We will arrive in Mandalika and there is a few corners where you ne🍒ed to use the edge grip, the traction. It’s there where we are losing a lot. You cannot do anything because you just spin.

“I will try to do 🙈my best as I do always, ♐but it will be more difficult.”

Quizzed on𒆙 whether the 140th rostrum of his grand prix career might change his plans for 2024, amid the growing Gresini Ducati rumours, Marquez signed off by calling the Motegi resul♏t a ‘romantic podium’.

“No. Today’s podium or India’s result, Misano, or Catalunya… I have a clever ment♌ality and I know what needs to happen, to do one way or the other one. We can say that today’s podium was a romantic p🎐odium.”