Martin wins Australia sprint amid major Bezzecchi-Vinales crash

MotoGP championship leader Jorge Martin dominated the Australian Grand Prix sprint race at Phillip Island, one punctuated by a fast crash involving Maverick Vinales and Marco Bezzecchi.

Vinales, who had gone backwards from the front row early on but was fighting his way back up the order, had just tried to overtake Bezzecchi at Turn 1, the Doohan corner, the lap before, but braked too late to stick anywhere near the racing line, losing out.

He regrouped to attack again the next time around, this time getting the move complete before the braking into Turn 1 - but as he moved ahead of Bezzecchi just before the braking zone, the latter locked the front and lost control in Vinales' slipstream, crashing into the Aprilia at speed.

Both headed to the medical centre after the impact.

Bezzecchi then went to hospital in Melbourne for "further examination", though the initial check didn't turn up any fractures. Vinales, meanwhile, was diagnosed with elbow contusions and has been passed fit to ride.

Out front, Martin led from start to finish, taking an important win and extending his championship lead to 16 points over Bagnaia.

The latter had moved up to third behind Martin and Marc Marquez off the line, but when Marquez "didn't calculate well" and had to pick up the bike to avoid hitting Martin, Bagnaia got the corner wrong, too.

It relegated Bagnaia to fourth and Marquez to eighth, and Bagnaia then made quick work of overtaking Vinales and Bezzecchi to put even more distance between himself and the six-time champion.

But a challenge against Martin, who had picked up a track limits warning as early as the second lap of 13, wasn't to be for Bagnaia. Nor was a simple run to second place, because the buffer he'd built over his other main rivals proved insufficient.

Marquez quickly scythed his way through the field, arriving at the back of a clearly pace-limited Bagnaia and getting the move done into Turn 4 - named after Jack Miller.

Bagnaia's team-mate Enea Bastianini followed through just a handful of corners later, and Bagnaia even briefly looked under threat from the riders behind him, although Bezzecchi and Vinales' fighting and eventual crash left him secure in fourth.

An attritional race - which included crashes out of the points for the KTMs of Miller and Brad Binder - allowed Bezzecchi's team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio to claim fifth on the road.

However, Di Giannantonio received an eight-second tyre pressure penalty, meaning Franco Morbidelli behind him inherited fifth place instead, having been side by side with Binder coming into Turn 4 when the latter crashed trying to defend position on the outside.

Raul Fernandez also benefitted from the Di Giannantonio sanction, the Trackhouse Aprilia rider promoted from sixth to seventh.

But the other two finishers in the points-scoring top nine, Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro and Tech3 Gas Gas sophomore Augusto Fernandez, were too far back to gain a place - the latter just 0.068s clear of Honda's Luca Marini at the finish for the one point.

Fernandez's RC16 was the only bike from the KTM/Gas Gas family to reach the finish, with Pedro Acosta joining the works KTMs in crashing out - Acosta's highside requiring a medical centre visit of his own due to shoulder pain. Tech3 confirmed afterwards no fractures were detected but Acosta will be assessed again after Sunday warm-up.

There were also falls for Gresini Ducati rider Alex Marquez and LCR Honda's Johann Zarco.

Australian GP sprint results (top nine)

1. Jorge Martin
2. Marc Marquez
3. Enea Bastianini
4. Pecco Bagnaia
5. Franco Morbidelli
6. Raul Fernandez
7. Fabio Di Giannantonio
8. Aleix Espargaro
9. Augusto Fernandez