Francesco Bagnaia has taken victory in Austria ahead of his championship rival Miguel Oliveira after a tense battle in the final laps. Bagnaia now leads the championship again, just three points ahead of Oliveira.
Bagnaia started from pole position but it was Oliveira that went into turn 1 first and led for most of the race. Fabio Quartararo made contact with Bagnaia in turn 1 but fortunately for Bagnaia there was limited damage for him, continuing in third whilst Quartararo dropped to the back of the field. Bagnaia soon passed Jorge Navarro in second and then Oliveira and Bagnaia ran first and second respectively, pulling out well ahead of the rest of the field.
In the following pack, Alex Marquez, Mattia Pasini and Luca Marini battled for third place. Marini was setting the fastest laps of the race in sixth position and was soon hot on the heels of Marquez in fourth, but was told to move back one position due to exceeding track limits. He overtook Marquez after this penalty was given and then dropped behind him again, which is possibly something race direction would have looked at, but it’s unclear whether he had already given a position back before the penalty was shown on the coverage. So far there has been no word from race direction about an investigation or penalty, so it’s unlikely there will be any changes to the race standings now.
Lorenzo Baldassarri lost the front at turn 3 in the early stages of the race, causing a big crash involving Iker Lecuona, Simone Corsi and Augusto Fernandez. Considering there were riders and bikes lying on the track it’s very fortunate that no one was hurt and Baldassari was able to continue in the race, eventually finishing twenty-sixth.
Marquez suffered another disastrous result after a DNF last time out in Brno. Despite running well for most of the race in the battle for third place, he attempted an overtake on Marini in the last corner of the last lap and crashed out. He is now 76 points adrift of Bagnaia in the championship standings and is very unlikely to challenge for the title this year.
On the other side of the Marc VDS garage, Joan Mir rode an impressive race after starting from twentieth on the grid. He moved up to 6th in the opening laps and eventually finished in a strong 8th place.
MOTO2 EYETIME MOTORRAD GRAND PRIX VON OSTERREICH (race result):
[table id=3311 /]
