Martin takes first win of 2023, but Quartararo crashes out
Starting from pole, MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia made a brilliant start as he led into turn one from Jack Miller.
However, second place quickly changed hands as Jorge Martin’s wide line gave him the inside for turn three as he swooped past Miller and Marc Marquez.
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Using a medium front tyre, the same tyre that was used by many riders that crashed in Friday’s practice 2, Miller suffered an early exit at turn seven.
Directly ahead of Marquez, Miller lost the front-end of his RC16 mid-corner, while teammate Brad Binder put a hard move on Luca Marini for P4 at turn eight.
At the beginning of lap four came the first overtake for the lead as Martin dove to the inside of Bagnaia at turn two.
The Pramac rider then put a full second into Bagnaia as Marquez lined up a move. The Repsol Honda man attempted to do the same overtake as Martin but Bagnaia stayed strong around the outside.
However, Binder took full advantage of both riders holding each other up as he squared off turn three and powered past on the run to turn four.
Marquez finally got his move on Bagnaia completed at the beginning of lap six which allowed Marini to also come through.
The reigning world champion quickly fought back in order to claim P4 before regrouping in order to challenge Marquez once again.
Lap seven saw a crash for Augusto Fernandez, while at the front, Martin’s lead over Binder was up to 1.5 seconds.
Bagnaia, who was all over Marquez, regained a podium spot as he overtook Marquez with a brave move at turn one.
With the cameras showcasing an onboard view of Fabio Quartararo in eighth, the 2021 world champion dramatically lost the front-end of his Yamaha at turn nine with four laps remaining.
Quartararo had made brilliant progress from 13th to eighth prior to his crash which was a huge disappointment for the home crowd.
With Marquez now struggling, Marini was the next rider to pounce on the eight-time world champion at turn two.
Marquez did manage to stay close to Marini but he was unable to challenge the Italian.
At the front, the top three remained unchanged as Martin took his first win of 2023.
