An incredible finish in Austria! Three crashes and rain or who won the race in Spielberg?

Rain at the end of the race fundamentally messed up the Austrian Grand Prix standings. Drivers that you would not normally expect in the top ten ended up on the points. How did the race in Spielberg go?

Jorge Martin made a great start from pole position and literally shot out of his starting slot into the first corner. However, he then lost the lead and Francesco Bagnaia took the lead, followed by Johann Zarco in second place.

The opening laps saw some great battles for the standings, with Marc Márquez on a Honda motorcycle taking the podium on lap three. On the other hand, the current championship leader, Fabio Quartararo, dropped down to sixth.

However, the 22-year-old Frenchman moved up to fourth on lap five and moved up the order.

Lap seven saw a magnificent battle between three riders – Quartarro, Márquez and Martin. It was the former who took advantage of Marquez’s mistake on the exit of turn three, overtaking Martin as well to take second place!

Márquez, however, was able to hold on to the ensuing battle with Martin to take the number 3 position. The first retirement came on lap 7, when Enea Bastianini pitted due to significant damage to his bike. Bastianini’s fairing literally flew off.

On lap eight, Quartararo took the race lead, but only for a brief moment. As the race wore on, the leading trio pulled away from their pursuers. The Austrian Grand Prix brought a second crash on lap 19.

Zarco crashed in a very fast turn nine and would have to wait for another podium. And four laps later, another podium contender, Miguel Oliveira, failed to control his bike.

With four laps to go in the race, six riders came together and we watched a terrific battle for first place. However, five of the six riders pitted on the next lap to change bikes for wet tyres.

Specifically, Márquez, Bagnaia, Martin, Quartararo and Joan Mir. Brad Binder decided to stay on the dry tyres and try the lottery.

By staying on the race track he built up a solid lead, but especially on the last lap he was de facto brakeless. He made sure to mention that in his post-race interview. In the end, however, he managed to hold on to first place by almost 10 seconds.

“It was really scary, but in the end I decided to go for the lottery and it worked. Going through the last corner I was thinking about it and calculating how many seconds per lap we would probably lose if we stayed on the wet track with dry tyres,” Binder admitted.

“This win is absolutely amazing, I have to thank everyone who contributed to it. The last lap it was hard to stay on the track at all, there were several moments when I thought I was going to crash. Someone was probably keeping a protective hand over me. My tyres and brakes went completely cold and I was de facto without brakes at the end,” he added.

Binder was 15 seconds slower than Martin, the third man in the final standings, on the last lap. How did the Austrian Grand Prix turn out anyway?

Binder takes the race win on the Red Bull KTM motorcycle, who won their home race here. Second place went to Bagnaia in the service of the Ducati Lenovo Team. They were joined on the podium by Jorge Martin (Pramac Racing).

Joan Mir (Suzuki Ecstar) crossed the line fourth, Luca Marini (Esponsorama Racing) finished fifth, Iker Lecuona (Tech 3 KTM) sixth, Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) seventh, Valentino Rossi (Petronas Yamaha SRT) eighth, Alex Márquez (LCR Honda) ninth and Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing) rounded out the top ten.

The latter, it should be noted, was still in third place with one lap to go in the race. This is a testament to how difficult it is to keep your bike wet at all on dry tyres.

Source: Moto GP Live