An amazing race in France brought fierce battles and a surprise winner! Seven riders failed to finish the race

A total of 110,000 fans watched Sunday’s MotoGP French Grand Prix. It offered a very attractive spectacle, a lot of infarction moments, whereupon seven riders did not finish! So who dominated the seventh round of the season?

All the lights went out at 2pm sharp, with the order of the top twelve riders at the start of the French Grand Prix looking like this – Bagnaia, Miller, Aleix Espargaro, Quartararo, Bastianini, Mir, Rins, Martin, Zarco, Marc Márquez, Pol Espargaro and Takaaki Nakagami rounding out the fourth row.

The two Ducati riders literally made a rocket start, swapping positions at the front at the start. The Suzuki bikes also got off to a great start, specifically Joan Mir and Alex Rins. Marc Márquez gained three places at the start, while Fabio Quartararo dropped four places.

Miguel Oliveira on the Red Bull KTM also made his way to the front. The Portuguese rider started the race from seventeenth position, but after two laps he managed to improve five positions.

Already on the third lap of the French Grand Prix, the spectators in the stands and on the TV screens witnessed the first crash. Rins failed to exit the duck at turn four and ended his race prematurely.

A lap later, Remy Gardner also crashed, while Raul Fernandez also went out on lap seven of the French Grand Prix when he failed to control his bike at turn six.

On lap four, Francesco Bagnaia took the race lead, relegating his teammate to second place.

Bagnaia, Miller, Bastianini, Mir, Aleix Espargaro, Quartararo, Marc Márquez, Nakagami, Zarco, Binder – that’s how the top ten standings looked after eight laps of the French Grand Prix.

However, it was Enea Bastianini who took second place on lap 12 ahead of Australian Miller, splitting the Ducati factory team riders.

A tragic weekend for Suzuki was confirmed on lap fifteen when Mir crashed at turn 14. In addition, the Japanese marque confirmed its retirement from MotoGP at the end of this season, with Mir and Rins becoming free riders.

Turns 9 and 13 in particular proved how technically demanding and difficult the Le Mans circuit is throughout the race weekend. And it was in the first mentioned section that Jorge Martin crashed and his bike even started to burn slightly after the impact.

In the final laps of the race, Bastianini caught race leader Bagnaiu and the fans watched a wonderful battle for the top spot.

However, the Ducati rider made a mistake on lap 21 of the French Grand Prix that cost him the top spot. He even crashed a lap later at Turn 13 and despite a great performance, he didn’t finish Sunday’s race.

Bastianini immediately built up a very solid lead of 2.3 seconds on second-placed Miller. With two laps to go, the fans saw one more retirement from the race when Oliveira crashed very dangerously in turn five.

You can see the final standings for the French Grand Prix at Le Mans in the attached Twitter post above. The third win of the season went to Bastianini, who is really comfortable on fast tracks.

It should be noted that although he rides a non-factory Gresini team bike, he certainly has the skills to challenge for the world title this season!

Aleix Espargaro took another podium finish for Aprilia, with home rider Frenchman Quartararo finishing just 106 thousandths of a second off fourth. Seven riders did not see the finish line!

“It was the hardest race of the season, my front end was closing up at every corner. A lot of riders crashed today, I had three crisis corners where I almost crashed. I had to change maps and bike settings during the race. But I’m very happy and satisfied that I managed to finish on the podium again,” said Aleix Espargaro in a post-race interview.

“I’m thrilled with this win, it’s been a very complicated weekend for me. I was doing very fast laps. I’m very happy to give the team the win. Everyone is working hard to make sure we have the best and fastest bike possible. Today’s victory is a reward for us,” explained Bastianini also immediately after the race.

Source: MotoGP