Bagnaia dominates MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix, takes championship lead over Jorge Martin

Francesco Bagnaia won the Austrian Grand Prix, dominating the race throughout as Jorge Martin took a comfortable second place.

Bagnaia obliterated the rest of the field to take an incredibly dominant victory at the Red Bull Ring, beating championship rival Jorge Martin comprehensively, the Italian now leads the World Championship by five points over Martin.

The pair duelled in the opening laps, with Bagnaia managing the pace out front, with Martin’s Pramac Ducati staying within half a second for the first half of the race. Elsewhere at the start, Marc Marquez would have ride height problems on the grid, affecting his race start in a major way, as he dropped to outside the Top 10 going into Turn 1.

Marquez would run into the side of Franco Morbidelli in the attempt to not collect the other riders in front, the pair both ran deep into the escape road on the exit of Turn 1, with other riders taking avoiding action and being sat up in their saddle.

Bagnaia and Martin would duel even further into the race, however the Ducati Desmosedici GP24 that Francesco Bagnaia was riding, appeared to have exceptional speed coming out of the corner, meaning that Jorge Martin’s Pramac Ducati struggled greatly to keep up with the incredible pace of Bagnaia, and was forced to ride home to a comfortable second place.

Marco Bezzecchi made great progress throughout the course of the race, overtaking multiple riders early on after starting from ninth. Bezzecchi would duel with Marc Marquez at one point, with Marquez managing to overtake the Italian into Turn 2, a hard and late move put Bezzecchi’s VR46 Ducati slightly out of line, and he was forced to run wide.

Enea Bastianini ran a brilliant race, consistently managing the pace and not pushing out of his limit, the Italian would finish a comfortable third place and picks up more vital points in the championship, as he appears as the dark horse in the chaampionship.

Eventually, Marc Marquez would recover to fourth after then making his way past Brad Binder, who seemingly started to struggle for tyre grip aboard his Red Bull Factory KTM machine. Binder’s teammate, Jack Miller, would crash at Turn 2 at the midway point in the race after pressure from Marc Marquez, another crash for the Australian on what had been a more positive weekend going into the Grand Prix.

Dark grey clouds loomed large at Turn 4, with a relatively strong threat of potential rain, which unfortunately never quite came to pass. Meanwhile, the Aprilia’s of Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales battled together for seventh, with Vinales coming out on top, and Franco Morbidelli eventually splitting the pair, with his eighth place finish.

Further down the field, Pedro Acosta had a thoroughly disappointing race, finishing in 13th and having a much more regular race, compared to some of his earlier successes in the first half of the season, he matches his worst MotoGP finishing result of the season.

Takaaki Nakagami finished as the top Honda rider, with his 14th place finish, with Augusto Fernandez rounding out the Top 15 and therefore completing the points-paying positions. Alex Rins would finish just behind them as the Top Yamaha rider, albeit the Japanese manufacturer not scoring any points during the Grand Prix.

Francesco Bagnaia would come home to take victory by multiple seconds after a dominated and controlled race from the reigning champion, who took track position early on from Jorge Martin, with little challenge from his championship rival. Ducati took the first four positions, with the next manufacturer KTM, almost 20 seconds down on the Italian manufacturer.

MotoGP returns in two weeks time for the Gran Premio De Aragon.

MotoGP Austrian GP Results

1st Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati
2nd Jorge Martin, Prima Pramac
3rd Enea Bastianini, Ducati
4th Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing
5th Brad Binder, Red Bull Factory KTM
6th Marco Bezzecchi, VR46 Racing
7th Maverick Vinales, Aprilia
8th Franco Morbidelli, Prima Pramac
9th Aleix Espargaro, Aprilia
10th Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing
11th Pol Espargaro, Red Bull Factory KTM
12th Miguel Oliveira, Trackhouse Aprilia
13th Pedro Acosta, Red Bull GasGas KTM
14th Takaaki Nakagami, LCR Honda
15th Augusto Fernandez, Red Bull GasGas KTM
16th Alex Rins, Yamaha
17th Joan Mir, Repsol Honda
18th Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha
19th Jack Miller, Red Bull Factory KTM
20th Lorenzo Savadori, Aprilia
21st Johann Zarco, LCR Honda
22nd Stefan Bradl, Honda Racing Test Team
DNF Raul Fernandez, Trackhouse Aprilia
DNF Luca Marini, Repsol Honda

Featured Image: Ducati Corse Media