Bastianini wins in Aragon as disaster strikes for Quartararo and Marquez
Bagnaia’s attempt at converting yet another pole into victory and becoming only the third rider ever to win five consecutive MotoGP races, were helped by a brilliant start as he led from team-mate Jack Miller into turn one.
However, the best start went the way of Marquez as the Honda rider moved up from 13th to sixth coming out of turn one.
That was until utter chaos ensured three corners later…
Marquez had a big moment on the exit of turn four which resulted in Quartararo riding straight into the Repsol Honda rider - shades of Valentino Rossi when he ran into Jorge Lorenzo a few years ago at Assen.
But with nowhere to go due to being so close to Marquez - the contact between both riders had a much more damaging effect this time around as the reigning world champion crashed out before Marquez had further drama three corners later.
Slow coming out of turn seven as the rear of his RC213V was heavily damaged, Marquez unintentionally ran into Takaaki Nakagami who was on his outside, which led to a very scary fall for the Japanese rider.
Nakagami fell immediately before nearly being hit by several riders - thankfully he was not collected by anyone.
Keen to make progress as race leader Bagnaia was stretching clear from Miller, Enea Bastianini made his move on lap seven.
The soon-to-be factory Ducati rider then began closing in on Bagnaia as a repeat of their Misano battle looked to be on the cards.
But unlike Misano, Bastianini was able to get ahead of Bagnaia as he made light work of the Italian just one lap later.
A brilliant move into turn one was then followed by Bastianini running wide at turn 13, giving the lead back to Bagnaia.
After nearly losing a second to Bagnaia, Bastianini began yet another charge as he closed to within half a second.
In third, Binder was beginning to pull clear of Aleix Espargaro and Miller after surviving their early pressure.
As the laps started winding down, Bastianini’s second wind saw him close to within three tenths of Bagnaia, while Binder was now coming under pressure again from Espargaro.
With two laps to go Espargaro made a sensational move on Binder to claim third, a position he retained through to the checkered flag, while Bastianini did the same to Bagnaia for the win at turn seven on the final lap.
Bagnaia was unable to respond as he instead took second and closed to within ten points of Quartararo in the championship standings.
