Enea Bastianini claimed only his second MotoGP victory as a factory Ducati rider in the British Grand Prix, as Jorge Martin finished second to snatch the points lead away from Francesco Bagnaia.
Bastianini, who had already shown glimpses of his rapid pace by winning Saturday’s sprint, took advantage of a mistake for Martin with just two laps to score his fifth career win in MotoGP and mark himself as an outsider contender for the championship.
Despite the late error, Martin finished the race ahead of title rival Bagnaia to regain the championship lead that he had lost with a crash in the German Grand Prix just before the summer break.
At the start of the race, Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro made a poor getaway having opted for a hard front tyre as opposed to the medium used by nearly the entire field, as Bagnaia, Bastianini and Martin sprinted clear to make it a Ducati 1-2-3 at the front.
On the second lap, Bastianini ran wide at Brooklands and allowed Martin through into second, before the Italian also dropped behind Espargaro on the following tour.
The frontrunners spent the next phase of the 20-lap contest in tyre conservation mode, before Martin picked up the pace on lap 10 and brought the race back into life.
After spending a number of laps close on the tail of Bagnaia, the Pramac rider finally threw his bike up the inside on lap 13 at Village, making the move stick to snatch the lead over his title rival.
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Bagnaia kept up with Martin over the next two laps but then ran wide at Vale, with team-mate Bastianini – who had repassed Espargaro earlier – seizing the opportunity to demote him to third.
At this point, Bastianini faced a six-tenths of a second deficit to Martin out front, but he was able to rapidly bridge the gap as the race drew to a finish.
On lap 19, Martin made an error at the same Village turn where he had run wide earlier, with Bastianini wasting no time in passing him for the lead.
The 23-year-old was then able to cruise to the finish line, clinching his first victory of the season by 1.931s over Martin.
Bagnaia didn’t have the pace of his Ducati stablemates but was able to take the final spot of the podium in third to limit the loss to Martin, who now leads the championship by three points.
Espargaro continued to fade on the hard front tyre in the second half of the race and was only able to salvage fifth, with Gresini’s Marc Marquez passing him for fourth with five laps to go.
Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The second group of riders was led by Fabio di Giannantonio after the VR46 successfully beat the other Gresini Alex Marquez in a thrilling duel in the middle phase of the race.
Di Giannantonio’s team-mate Marco Bezzecchi took eighth after passing Tech3 GasGas rider Pedro Acosta late on.
Factory KTM rider Jack Miller looked set to complete top 10 before dropping to 12th in the final laps behind the Pramac Ducati of Franco Morbidelli and the lead Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo.
With and the struggling second Aprilia of Maverick Vinales in 13th, LCR’s Johann Zarco and factory HRC rider Luca Marini bagged a double points finish for Honda in 14th and 15th respectively.
Marini’s team-mate Joan Mir retired on lap 13, joining Brad Binder (KTM) and Trackhouse duo Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira in the list of retirees.
Binder suffered a technical problem at the start while the Trackhouse riders were involved in an opening-lap incident that sent both of them out of the race.
