Many great battles, a nasty crash for Pol Espargar and a home winner: who dominated the Italian Grand Prix?

The MotoGP Royal Cubature has already completed its eighth race of the season. In any case, the Italian Grand Prix provided a great spectacle. Four riders failed to finish the race, with home rider Francesco Bagnaia taking the win! Pol Espargaro suffered a very unpleasant crash.

Saturday’s qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix already produced some very surprising results in terms of front row positions. Newcomer Fabio Di Giannantonio started from pole position and was joined on the front row by Mooney VR46 drivers Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini.

And it was these two drivers who made a perfect start, with Bezzecchi taking the top spot and Marini second. Di Giannantonio dropped to third place after the start.

The Red Bull KTM rider Brad Binder also made an absolutely superb start, gaining eight positions at the start from his original 16th place! On the other hand, Pol Espargaro had a very bad start.

The 30-year-old Spanish rider started the Italian Grand Prix from position number 9, but dropped five positions after a few corners.

Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo set a high pace over the next few laps and gradually worked their way up the order.

Bezzecchi, Quartararo, Marini, Bagnaia, Di Giannantonio, Aleix Espargaro, Zarco, Binder, Bastianini and Marc Márquez – that’s how the top ten standings looked after five laps.

And it was on the fifth lap of the Italian Grand Prix that Pol Espargaro suffered a very nasty crash, falling off his Honda at high speed at the Arabiata corner.

A disastrous weekend for the Suzuki Ecstar team, which is retiring from MotoGP after the season. Not only did the Suzuki riders start the race from the back of the grid, they didn’t even finish the Italian Grand Prix.

Joan Mir crashed on lap eight at Turn 1, and moments later Alex Rins also failed to keep his bike on the track, crashing at Turn 12.

On the ninth lap, Bagnaia performed a beautiful manoeuvre, taking the lead over Bezzecchi in turn 1, while Quartararo held third position ahead of Marini in a beautiful duel.

However, the reigning world champion moved into second place two laps later and over the following laps both Quartararo and Bagnaia built up a good lead over the rest of the field.

Enea Bastianini was the fourth driver not to see the finish line at Mugello. The very talented Italian rider lost control of his bike on lap 14, specifically at turn 14.

Bagnaia, Quartararo, Bezzecchi, Aleix Espargaro, Marini, Zarco, Binder, Oliveira, Di Giannantonio, Nakagami – this is how the top ten order looked on lap 15 of the race.

In the battle for the last place on the podium, Aleix Espargaro overtook Bezzecchi for third on lap 17.

He also lost fourth place in the final laps when Johann Zarco on Pramac passed him on the last lap.

However, the order at the front remained unchanged until the end of the race and Bagnaia can celebrate his home Grand Prix victory! This is his first win in MotoGP at Mugello. Bagnaia will be joined on the podium by second-placed Quartararo and third-placed Aleix Espargaro, who extends his streak of podium finishes.

Fourth place at the finish belonged to Zarco, with the two Mooney VR46 team drivers finishing fifth and sixth. Seventh place went to Brad Binder, with Takaaki Nakagami crossing the line eighth. Miguel Oliveira finished ninth, with Marc Márquez rounding out the elite ten.

Di Giannantonio, who started from pole position, finished eleventh, while Maverick Viñales recorded a great result in twelfth place.

It should be noted that the eleventh place finish at the Italian Grand Prix had to be decided by a photo finish, as both drivers’ times were exactly the same to the thousandth of a second!

Source: MotoGP