MotoGP

Bagnaia crushes rivals in Red Bull Ring MotoGP walkover

by Valentin Khorounzhiy
9 min read

MotoGP championship leader Pecco Bagnaia completed a Red Bull Ring double by thoroughly dominating Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix.

The win extended Bagnaia’s championship lead to 62 points, with 37 on offer per weekend and 10 of them remaining in the season.

Like on Saturday, Bagnaia had Brad Binder’s KTM as his nearest rival coming in and out of Turn 1 – yet this time Binder’s challenge was sustained for longer, as he stayed two or three tenths behind the championship leader for several laps.

Bagnaia looked to have the situation under complete control, however, and after keeping Binder from mounting any serious attack in the early stages, he started to properly build a gap as the lap count ticked over into the double digits.

He then properly asserted his authority over the second half of the 28-lap event, taking the win by 5.191s over Binder.

Binder’s KTM team-mate Jack Miller once more held third after the start, but like on Saturday his race pace looked severely limited – and the longer race distance made it a thoroughly dispiriting outing.

After fighting off an opening-lap Luca Marini attack, he soon began to tumble down the order, which kicked off with him being passed over consecutive laps 4-5-6 by Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez and the two VR46 Ducati entries.

And it was Ducati satellite bikes that ultimately monopolised the battle for the final podium spot.

Bezzecchi, having earlier found his way past team-mate Marini, soon arrived at the back of Marquez, who proved stubborn in his defence. A lap 16 attack at Turn 1 ended with Bezzecchi having to make extensive use of the run-off and surrender the position, and while on lap 20 he did manage to stay within the confines of the track Marquez again got a better exit.

But just as Marini caught up to the back of their battle, Bezzecchi finally made his move, picking his way past Marquez on the run to Turn 9.

Marini’s overtake on Marquez came over three laps later, coming into Turn 1, but by then Bezzecchi had already gone nearly two seconds clear to consolidate a podium finish.

Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales had a marginally better – but still slow – start compared to the sprint, but was then also sluggish getting out of Turn 1, this relegating him to 11th. He recovered to eighth at the end of the lap, but only picked up two positions from there to finish sixth, running out of laps to attack Marquez.

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Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin, who had been assessed a long-lap penalty in this race for his role in the pile-up on Saturday, dropped to 13th after serving it, but recovered to score a seventh place.

Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was compromised early on by running out wide at Turn 9 and then being forced out wide again at the next corner as he tried to defend from Aleix Espargaro – but he would catch back up and ultimately overtake Espargaro on the last lap.

Enea Bastianini took 10th place for Ducati, ahead of the second Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli and Honda’s Marc Marquez – who had a quiet race but did record, remarkably, his first Sunday points of the season.

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Miller’s drop-off was so substantial that battles on the last-lap ended up with him finishing as low as 16th on the road, but a time penalty for track limits offences for Tech3 Gas Gas rider Pol Espargaro turned that into 15th place – behind Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati) and rookie Augusto Fernandez (Tech3 Gas Gas), the latter maintaining his streak of scoring on every Sunday this season.

Joan Mir’s awful season on the Honda continued as he was the only rider to crash out of the race, doing so at Turn 3, known in the past as Remus.

But there were two other retirements in the RNF Aprilias, which carried special ‘Barbie-inspired’ liveries in this race but ultimately were both parked up in the pitlane.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Bike Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Francesco Bagnaia Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 28 28 42m23.315s 1m29.84s 0 37
2 Brad Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 28 0 +5.191s 1m29.992s 0 29
3 Marco Bezzecchi Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati 28 0 +7.708s 1m30.022s 0 16
4 Luca Marini Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati 28 0 +10.343s 1m30.204s 0 13
5 Alex Marquez Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 28 0 +11.039s 1m30.207s 0 17
6 Maverick Viñales Aprilia Racing Aprilia 28 0 +11.724s 1m30.335s 0 12
7 Jorge Martin Prima Pramac Racing Ducati 28 0 +12.917s 1m30.316s 0 16
8 Fabio Quartararo Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 28 0 +19.509s 1m30.557s 0 8
9 Aleix Espargaró Aprilia Racing Aprilia 28 0 +20.231s 1m30.052s 0 10
10 Enea Bastianini Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 28 0 +20.729s 1m30.326s 0 6
11 Franco Morbidelli Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 28 0 +21.527s 1m30.68s 0 6
12 Marc Marquez Repsol Honda Team Honda 28 0 +23.027s 1m30.748s 0 4
13 Johann Zarco Prima Pramac Racing Ducati 28 0 +24.259s 1m30.395s 0 3
14 Augusto Fernandez GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 KTM 28 0 +25.365s 1m30.679s 0 2
15 Jack Miller Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 28 0 +25.475s 1m30.406s 0 6
16 Pol Espargaró GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 KTM 28 0 +28.073s 1m30.783s 0 4
17 Fabio Di Giannantonio Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 28 0 +28.998s 1m30.966s 0 0
18 Takaaki Nakagami LCR Honda IDEMITSU Honda 28 0 +32.316s 1m31.19s 0 0
19 Lorenzo Savadori Aprilia Racing Aprilia 28 0 +42.392s 1m31.378s 0 0
20 Iker Lecuona LCR Honda CASTROL Honda 28 0 +46.239s 1m31.264s 0 0
Raul Fernandez CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team Aprilia 27 0 DNF 1m30.924s 0 0
Joan Mir Repsol Honda Team Honda 12 0 DNF 1m30.896s 0 0
Miguel Oliveira CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team Aprilia 6 0 DNF 1m30.843s 0 0

Driver Standings

Pos Driver Team Points R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 R15 R16 R17 R18 R19 R20
1 Francesco Bagnaia Ducati Lenovo Team 283 37 4 12 34 7 37 29 34 20 37 9 23 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Jorge Martin Prima Pramac Racing 247 9 13 7 19 32 27 37 15 14 16 21 37 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 Marco Bezzecchi Mooney VR46 Racing Team 218 16 34 14 1 28 17 16 32 9 16 6 29 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 Brad Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 173 10 12 8 32 19 11 4 18 17 29 6 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 Aleix Espargaró Aprilia Racing 160 11 1 6 11 13 12 1 22 30 10 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 Johann Zarco Prima Pramac Racing 147 15 20 9 2 20 22 21 0 13 3 16 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 Luca Marini Mooney VR46 Racing Team 135 0 15 23 10 6 18 17 9 9 13 5 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 Maverick Viñales Aprilia Racing 128 25 7 13 3 1 4 0 3 18 12 27 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 Alex Marquez Gresini Racing MotoGP 108 12 21 0 8 0 0 11 11 12 17 10 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 Jack Miller Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 104 15 10 1 23 0 13 17 0 11 6 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 Fabio Quartararo Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 85 8 10 16 6 9 5 3 7 1 8 9 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
12 Franco Morbidelli Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 68 2 19 8 5 6 6 4 7 2 6 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13 Miguel Oliveira CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team 65 3 0 13 5 0 0 6 0 13 0 15 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
14 Augusto Fernandez GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 58 3 5 6 3 13 1 5 6 7 2 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
15 Alex Rins LCR Honda CASTROL 47 6 7 34 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
16 Fabio Di Giannantonio Gresini Racing MotoGP 43 0 6 7 4 8 2 7 0 3 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
17 Takaaki Nakagami LCR Honda IDEMITSU 35 4 3 0 7 7 3 2 8 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
18 Dani Pedrosa Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 32 0 0 0 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
19 Marc Marquez Repsol Honda Team 31 7 0 0 0 5 3 0 0 0 4 3 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 Enea Bastianini Ducati Lenovo Team 25 0 0 0 0 0 8 8 2 0 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21 Raul Fernandez CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team 22 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 4 6 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
22 Lorenzo Savadori Aprilia Racing 9 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
23 Jonas Folger GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 9 0 0 4 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
24 Pol Espargaró GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
25 Michele Pirro Ducati Lenovo Team 5 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
26 Joan Mir Repsol Honda Team 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
27 Danilo Petrucci Ducati Team Team 5 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
28 Stefan Bradl Repsol Honda Team 5 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
29 Iker Lecuona LCR Honda CASTROL 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Team Standings

Pos Team Points R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 R15 R16 R17 R18 R19 R20
1 Pramac Racing 394 24 33 16 21 52 49 58 15 27 19 37 43 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Mooney VR46 Racing Team 353 16 49 37 11 34 35 33 41 18 29 11 39 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 Ducati Lenovo Team 318 37 4 17 34 12 45 37 36 20 43 10 23 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 Aprilia Racing 288 36 8 19 14 14 16 1 25 48 22 64 21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 277 25 22 9 55 19 24 21 18 28 35 14 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 153 10 29 24 11 15 11 7 14 3 14 11 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 Gresini Racing MotoGP 151 12 27 7 12 8 2 18 11 15 17 16 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 CryptoData RNF MotoGP Team 91 3 2 13 6 4 0 7 4 19 0 15 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 LCR Honda 85 10 10 34 7 7 3 2 11 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 Gasgas Factory Racing Tech3 75 3 5 10 3 16 1 5 8 11 6 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 Repsol Honda Team 36 12 0 0 0 5 3 0 0 0 4 3 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
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