Bagnaia and Aleix (9th) won, despite being sick, they only gave one point to Quartararo

The Italian Pecco Bagnaia achieved his fourth victory of the year, already leading this chapter, in a dizzying race that had five leaders at the Silverstone circuit and despite the pressure and falls raised by Maverick Viñales in the last three lap, he was able to resist the challenge of Roses, second, his second consecutive box for Aprilia and the poor start due to not using the ‘rear device’ conditioned his victory. Jack Miller has completed the podium. The erratic Bagnaia reclaimed third place in the championship and cut his gap to Quartararo to 49 points when the next visit is to the Red Bull Ring where Ducati is unrivaled.

Everyone is watching the duel between Fabio Quartararo and Aleix Espargaró, the two strong men of the World Cup, one with a long lap penalty handicap and the other with pain in both ankles. They finally made it back-to-back, eighth and ninth, but Granollers’ honor was revealed again when on the final lap he tried to overtake his great rival at turn 13, but was unable to consolidate. A disastrous FP4 crash saw Aleix lose a good chance to take down his rival as without his physical problems he would have been ready to win while Quartararo with the risky choice of a soft striker was also wrong.

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Aleix was tested in the warm up

Half an hour before the start of the race, Aleix Espargaró came from behind the box with his wife Laura. Visibly closed, he went to his box seat with headphones and lidocaine (a local anesthetic) patches on each of his bruised ankles. In the morning warm-up he completed two runs of six and three laps testing the ankles he hurt on Saturday, as well as the bike destroyed in the crash in FP4 and that stiff rear that flew in his and finally his choice. He finished sixth in that warmup, 6 tenths behind his teammate Viñales and Quartararo was almost six thousandths behind him.

In that first row ahead of the three strong men of the championship, three riders lined up hungry for victory: Zarco, who since jumping to MotoGP in 2017 shot to the crossbar, Viñales, for his first victory with the Aprilia after adding in Assen his first podium with Noale and becoming the fifth rider in history to win with three different brands and Miller, unprecedented at the top since Le Mans’2021 in his farewell year from Ducati.

Zarco took the initiative ahead of a determined Quartararo who managed to get into second and quickly shoot alongside his compatriot to set up for the long lap. Viñales, sixth, lost his place after being sandwiched between Quartararo and Miller, ahead of his teammate Aleix Espargaró who only gave up one. Rins made one of his usual starts and from 11th he improved to fifth in a battle with Viñales.

Lose three places with a long lap penalty

Finishing the first lap with a margin of 5-7 tenths over his pursuer Miller, Quartararo sent out a warning to take the penalty, he had three laps to follow and had exhausted his last option after stretch the group with Zarco. Aleix was unable to maintain that dizzying pace, dropping out of that top-7 after being overtaken by Jorge Martín and he was 2″7 off the lead. By the time Quartararo served the penalty on the fifth lap, he had gone from in second to fifth -1″4 with a header – and just entered the track ahead of Viñales and with a margin of 1″ on Espargaró.

Zarco falls when leading

And on what looked like D-day for French Zarco and he had a three-tenths of a lead advantage, he crashed at turn 8 on the fifth lap for leaning a little and left Miller in the lead with Rins and Bagnaia covering the rest part of the temporary podium areas. Viñales started the campaign of harassing and dropping Quartararo, but Jorge Martín was more determined, he was playing for the second place in the official Ducati box for 2023 with Bastianini this August, and he passed from Roses sandwiched between them. . One turn later ‘Martinator’ caught Quartararo.

Rins, from 11th on the grid to 1st

Up front, Alex Rins was still very fast and took out the two official Ducatis to take the lead and quickly put seven tenths between them. With 12 laps to go, Viñales finally passed Quartararo for fifth place, but Aleix was also overtaken by Mir for seventh and the Majorcan was hooked to keep alive some 2″ from the lead.

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Bagnaia was closing the gap on Rins until rejoining him in the group of five where Quartararo had fallen, out of rhythm at Silverstone a year after his victory, and nine from the end he overtook him. Two laps later, Viñales overtook Martín for fourth and Miller did the same for second with Alex Rins dropping back as the pace of the race slowed for all but Bastianini who started from eighth on the grid. and that. happened to Aleix and Mir in one fell swoop and then to Quartararo. Although Aleix inherited eighth place due to Mir’s crash, Oliveira made it back as he overtook ninth five from the end, two places behind his French rival.

Viñales passed Bagnaia for the victory, but was unable to unify

Four from the end, Viñales passed Rins for third place with leader Bagnaia 8 tenths behind and with one lap to go he had passed Miller for second place and Bagnaia was only 6 tenths away. With two remaining he tried and overtook in turn 1, but not yet able to consolidate, the Ducatista gave him back at the start for better acceleration.

Bagnaia threw everything in that last lap where he couldn’t answer. Behind for eighth place, Quartararo and Espargaró were left battling, entering the finish line at 0″139 and after trying to overtake Aleix on lap 13. From barely running for the big post on Saturday to just missing one point over his rival and now have 22 points between them.

As for the other Spaniards, Jorge Martín lost his battle with Bastianini for fourth place, Rins finished seventh, Aleix Espargaró ninth, Pol Espargaró 14th, Alex Márquez 17th and Raúl Fernández 21st.