The world champion wants to be that again, and in each race or half a race he takes another step towards his two-time championship. Pecco Bagnaia claimed victory in the Austrian Sprint Race, ahead of Binder and Jorge Martín, and already leads the man from Madrid by 46 points. It was the Italian’s fourth victory on Ducati in the tenth short race of the year.
The most positive note was Pol Espargaró’s 6th place in his second Grand Prix after the injury that kept him out for four months due to that ugly fall in Portugal. The Granollers rider was warmly congratulated by his Gas Gas team.
The start of the Sprint Race repositioned the race with a good wiggle. Bagnaia kept pole, but Maverick Viñales, next to him, got stuck and dropped to 17th, while the KTMs moved up to second and third, with Binder and Miller. Quartararo, Bezzecchi, Oliveira and Zarco fell from behind at turn 1 when they touched in a chain scrum as they reached the corner funnel.
The strike originated with the entry into the curve of Jorge Martín and the sudden braking of Quartararo, which triggered the chain collision. From the Bezzecchi team they blamed Martín as the cause of the mess, by entering the curve too hard.
The two who gained the most were Jorge Martín, from 12th to fifth on the grid, and Marc Márquez, from 18th to ninth, as well as Pol Espargaró, from 16th to seventh. Three superb climbs taking advantage of the stumble at the start.
The fight for victory was a Bagnaia and Binder affair from the early going. The Ducati and KTM riders escaped, opening a substantial gap (1.7s on lap 6), while a tough battle broke out between Miller, Marini and Martín for the third position on the podium, who put fourth in the lap 6 by overtaking the Australian.
The controversial move came on the seventh lap at turn 2, the chicane, when Martín and Marini touched when the man from Madrid entered the variant. The Italian went to the ground due to the touch and Martín conquered the third position. The stewards considered that it was a “race incident” that did not require any sanction.
At that moment, after halfway through the race (v. 9/14), Bagnaia had already pulled and had taken 1.3s ahead of Binder. The Italian’s advantage grew in the last few laps; with 3 laps to go he was already 1.8 seconds ahead of the South African. Pecco was very strong, ready to deal another blow to the World Cup lead over Martín.
The man from Madrid was able to minimize the damage from his lousy qualifying (12th, penalized for exceeding the track limits) with a good third place that gave him 7 points (five less than the leader). “I’m in shock, after everything that has happened to me,” said Martín, excited to arrive for his comeback. “I thought I would fall a long-lap (in the maneuver with Marini) and it was when I pushed the most”, explained the man from Pramac.
Àlex Márquez, the winner of the previous Sprint at Silverstone, signed a good fourth place, ahead of Miller. Pol Espargaró achieved an excellent sixth position (he gained 10 places), followed by the two Aprilias, Viñales and Aleix Espargaró, and Marc Márquez was 10th, one position away from scoring a point.
