Martin takes first GP win in four months, chaos behind him

MotoGP championship leader Jorge Martin controlled the Indonesian Grand Prix at Mandalika, as only 12 riders made the finish.

Those riders didn't include outside title contenders Enea Bastianini and Marc Marquez, who are now effectively out of the running, while a third-place finish for Martin's rival Pecco Bagnaia means the gap is 21 points coming out of Mandalika - having stood at 24 points coming into the weekend.

That gap briefly looked like coming down further to 17 points, as second-place finisher Pedro Acosta was placed under investigation for a tyre pressure infringement - only to be let off two hours later due to a "leaking wheel rim" being accepted as mitigation.

An immediate four-bike crash set the tone for what would prove an attritional race - as Jack Miller found himself trapped on the line for Turn 2 turning into a tight inside line for Turn 3, tried to quickly flick his KTM the other way and instead tucked the front.

The resulting pile-up also eliminated Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati), Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and Luca Marini (Honda) from the race.

Martin, who had kept the lead off the line, was only a handful of tenths clear by the time he went past the site of the crash again - but he soon began to press his advantage, with Bastianini behind him seemingly limited by the warm-up of the medium rear tyre in the early going.

The same was true for his Ducati team-mate Bagnaia, whose bike hopped off the line to deny him a repeat of his strong sprint start - and who ended the opening lap all the way down in sixth.

Bastianini was soon overtaken by Acosta, with the satellite Ducatis of Franco Morbidelli and Marco Bezzecchi following through in quick succession - while Bagnaia found himself busy fighting off Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Those latter two would exit the race very shortly, though, Di Giannantonio (who had gambled on a soft rear) crashing out on the ninth lap and Marquez, three laps later, parking a bike engulfed in flames after an apparent engine failure.

Both Bastianini and Bagnaia soon both found good pace, and the former battled back into third place, setting a race-best 1m30.539s in pursuit of the top two on lap 20.

This was immediately followed by him crashing out at the first corner of lap 21.

All the while Martin and Acosta ran a second apart out front, the rookie making brief inroads towards his Spanish compatriot but Martin always responding. And soon after Bastianini crashed Acosta seemed to accept second place, finishing 1.4s behind as Martin claimed his first Sunday win since the French GP in May.

Bagnaia settled for third, having eased past Morbidelli and Bezzecchi in the end - the pair completing the top five as the only soft-front runners to make the finish (the other 10 finishers having run the hard front).

Maverick Vinales salvaged a sixth place on an underwhelming weekend for Aprilia, followed by Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), who recovered from a particularly poor opening lap.

Brad Binder had a difficult race on his works KTM, though did at least beat LCR Honda's Johann Zarco to eighth place on the final lap - as Zarco still celebrated his and Honda's first top-10 grand prix finish of the season.

Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia), Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda) and Alex Rins (Yamaha) completed the on-the-road order.

Binder and Nakagami were, like Acosta, put under investigation for tyre pressure breaches - with the former cleared like Acosta and the latter penalised, moving him behind Rins.

In addition to the aforementioned, Augusto Fernandez (Tech3 Gas Gas) and Joan Mir (Honda) were two more retirements, the former parking up in the pits and the latter crashing out.