Vinales handed MotoGP win as Bagnaia crashes out of lead

Maverick Vinales inherited his and the works Yamaha team’s first MotoGP victory of the 2020 season after Pramac Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia crashed out of a clear lead with just seven laps to go at Misano.

Bagnaia – who had lost a potential pole lap to a track limits infringement yesterday – had rapidly fought through from fifth on the grid to take the lead from Vinales on lap five of the 28-lap race.

He then looked on course to comfortably take his and Pramac’s first MotoGP win as he established a 1.5s cushion over Vinales.

But just as Bagnaia appeared certain to become 2020’s fifth first-time victor in seven races, he lost the bike at the tight Turn 8 left-hander and crashed out.

That left Vinales with a commanding 4s lead over the battle between Pol Espargaro, Fabio Quartararo and Joan Mir for second.

Petronas SRT Yamaha rider Quartararo had spent most of the race trying in vain to pass Espargaro’s KTM, before Mir caught their battle and quickly sliced past both to give Suzuki second place.

Quartararo overtook Espargaro too, only to then pick up a long lap penalty for track limits infringements. He didn’t take it on track so a 3s penalty was applied, dropping him to fourth between the KTMs of Espargaro and Miguel Oliveira.

Bagnaia was far from the only crasher in the race.

Last week’s winner Franco Morbidelli had to fight back to ninth after being sent wide when Aleix Espargaro crashed his Aprilia on lap one and slid into the Petronas SRT Yamaha.

Valentino Rossi also fell early on and later retired, while Brad Binder battled into the top three for KTM in the opening laps but then crashed twice.

Fellow KTM runner Iker Lecuona of Tech3 was on course for sixth before he became the final faller on the penultimate lap.

Jack Miller crashed very heavily in the warm-up, but shrugged it off to blast from second into the lead at the start of the race before Vinales retaliated further around the order lap. Miller slipped down the order thereafter before retiring with an engine problem caused by one of Quartararo’s visor tear-offs going into his Ducati.

Honda had some encouragement as Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez finished sixth and seventh, warm-up pacesetter Marquez having rapidly advanced into the top 10 in the first few laps.

Andrea Dovizioso amazingly still leads the championship thanks to a quiet eighth place, putting him just one point ahead of the now-tied Quartararo and Vinales with Mir a further three adrift.

The second works Ducati of Danilo Petrucci fell back from an early top six place to 10th. Johann Zarco, Alex Rins and Bradley Smith were the only other finishers.

Race Results