Pecco Bagnaia gave a coup of authority to strengthen his leadership in the MotoGP World Championship with his victory in Assen, the fourth of the season in a Sunday race. The leader and champion prevailed with authority over Marco Bezzecchi, who had been the fastest all weekend in all sessions. The immediate follower of him, Jorge Martín, fifth, drops to 35 points, and Bezzecchi to 36.
Aleix Espargaró closed the podium with a surprise third place achieved after finishing fourth at the finish, when Brad Binder was penalized for exceeding the track limits on the last lap, trying to defend himself from the Aprilia.
“It was difficult to overtake Brad, I stayed behind, and in the end it was worth it,” said the man from Granollers, who was running with a broken front wing due to a touch with Marini’s Ducati at the start.
Without the help of Marc Márquez due to injury, since he did not receive the medical “Fit” (he should have started 17th), the spotlight focused exclusively on the trio of favorites for the title. Bezzecchi and Bagnaia shared the first starting row; Jorge Martín closed the second, from the sixth painting.
The main character at the start was Brad Binder, who took advantage of the good starts from the KTMs to take the lead after the first corner, with Bagnaia and Bezzecchi behind. Jorge Martín failed, who dropped from 6th to 13th for avoiding a collision in the first corner, behind Quartararo, who also made a mistake at the start. Aleix Espargaró benefited from this, placing fourth after colliding with Marini.
The Frenchman from Yamaha collided with Zarco a lap later and both crashed at turn 7; which favored Jorge Martín to rise to 9th place, after passing Nakagami. And MaverickViñales, who was the fastest on the track, also fell in fifth position on lap 4. So that Martín ascended to the sixth place.
Bagnaia gave a shot of authority to snatch the first position from Binder, who stayed close, second, with Bezzecchi a little off the hook, at 2-3 tenths. Behind, more than 1.2 seconds away, Aleix Espargaró saw Martín, Álex Márquez and Nakagami, the best Honda, surprisingly seventh, catch up with him.
Assen’s race reached its halfway point (v. 13 of 26) with the question of whether Bezzecchi and Martín would go on the attack to prevent Bagnaia from opening up more of a hole in the championship.
Far from worrying the leader, it was Bagnaia himself who on lap 16 gave his lead a twist and opened a gap of 8 tenths over the South African. That made Bezzecchi react, who brushed Binder out of the way to start his pursuit of the champion: he had him at 1.2 seconds with 9 laps to go. Could he reach it?
Aleix Espargaró, solid in fourth place, smelled the blood of the KTM and was 4 tenths behind with 8 laps to go; he had Martín behind a second. He could hunt down the South African and get his first podium finish of the year.
The Catalan from Aprilia was on top of Binder with five laps to go, but in turn, Martín had put himself in an attack position behind Aleix. The three riders were sticking together in the fight for third place, testing each other and looking for the most favorable moment and angle. In addition, the three had closed to only half a second of Bezzecchi.
They reached the last lap with times at a minimum: Bagnaia had 8-9 tenths over Bezzecchi, and he only 5-7 over Binder, Aleix and Martín. The movement did not take place, only Jorge tried to catch the slipstream of the Aprilia to steal his wallet. He was only 9 thousandths from fourth place. Binder was going to keep the podium, but by exceeding the limits of the track on the last lap he lost a position and the third place automatically went to Aleix Espargaró. It happened to the South African in the same turn 8 of the Sprint, which made him lose third place.
Espargaró had not been on the podium since Aragón 2022, nine months ago. “It is not a cliché when we say that there is a high technical level in MotoGP. It was very difficult for me because the bike moved a lot due to the breakage of the wing; I told myself to be close to Brad, who in the end made a mistake and we deserve this podium”, commented the man from Granollers. “I think the top 5 in the championship is possible”, Aleix was encouraged.
