Closer was hard to come by. Jorge Martín took victory again in MotoGP on Sunday after beating Pecco Bagnaia to victory right on the finishing straight. Johann Zarco in turn achieved his third consecutive podium on sunday.
Jack Miller secured the holeshot after getting another great start on his KTM RC16. Pecco Bagnaia and Luca Marini were the Australian’s closest pursuers on the first lap. Miller then lost the lead after 12 corners to Bagnaia.
Besides the Italian two other Ducati riders overtook Miller: Jorge Martin, new runner-up, and Marini. The official KTM duo closed the top five. With Brad Binder and Miller was Aleix Espargaro, as the fight intensified behind Bagnaia.
During lap three Martin had overtaken Bagnaia, who was unable to hold off the pace of the Pramac Racing spaniard. The winner of saturday’s Sprint Race had a strong pace at the start of lap five and put more than half a second between himself and Bagnaia. Marini, who was close behind Bagnaia, had the factory KTM duo within seven-tenths of a second as the top ten changed corner after corner.
Fabio Quartararo made it into the top ten on lap seven, as Miller and Marco Bezzecchi swapped positions in the battle for sixth. Still looking for the perfect connection with his Desmosedici GP23 was Enea Bastianini in 11th. At this stage Maverick Viñales had to return to his garage after suffering a mechanical problem on his smoking Aprilia.
With a third of the race remaining Binder had overtaken Marini to move into third place. Ahead of him was, at 1.7 seconds, Bagnaia, who was putting pressure on the leader Martin.
Binder was third on lap 15 of 30 but only two-tenths of a second ahead of a trio of Ducatis pressing him: Johann Zarco, Marini and Bezzecchi. Up front Bagnaia was also riding at a higher pace than the rider in front of him. Martin remained consistent, he was simply losing ground to the champion at that stage of the race.
As Zarco got away from Marini and Bezzecchi, they were overtaking each other in the battle for fifth place. Zarco was getting closer and closer to Binder and overtaking seemed imminent. The Frenchman didn’t need to beat Binder for third place as the South African went wide at turn eight and crashed. He got up on his own two feet, and he was in a bit of a rut.
With ten laps to go Bagnaia took the lead for the first time and Martin tried to fight back immediately, without success. The spaniard didn’t let his factory rival get away though, and he kept on his rear wheel for the next few laps until he overtook him with six laps to go.
At this stage there were almost two races going on: the fight for victory and the fight for fourth place, with third place at this stage of the race belonging to an isolated Zarco, who was more than five seconds behind the leading duo and a half second behind Bezzecchi.
As he entered the last corner before the final lap the front wheel of Bagnaia’s bike touched the rear tyre of Martin’s Ducati and the champion lost some metres in the fight for victory. The last lap was a knife-edge affair, with Bagnaia giving everything to catch his opponent.
Until the end the duel made the stands stand up, with Martin winning side by side with Bagnaia on the finishing straight, 64 thousandths of a second apart! Any closer was difficult, with Zarco achieving another podium, his third in a row: