MotoGP | Bagnaia wins the Dutch GP; Aleix Espargaro makes a masterful race

Francesco Bagnaia, rider of the Ducati Lenovo Team in MotoGP, won the Dutch GP, this Sunday, after starting from pole position and leading the entire race. The Italian’s victory was somewhat overshadowed by Aleix Espargaro’s masterful race, who just needed to make it rain at the TT Assen circuit.

The dispute was for the other positions, with the leader of the championship Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) crashing when trying to overtake for the second position.

In his crash, he ended up ‘pushing’ Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing) off the track. With that, the Spaniard had to avoid the fall and ended up returning only in fifteenth position.

But he had a great recovery race, one of the best of his career. He ended up overtaking several riders and managed to finish fourth. The main one happened in the last corner of the last lap, when he put his bike on the inside under braking and passed two riders at the same time.

It was a move that hadn’t been seen in a long time: three riders, side by side, sharing the brakes of the famous chicane of the TT Circuit Assen. He was on the inside, Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) in the middle and Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team) on the outside. The last one practically ran out of main race line and ended up being overtaken by the other two. A masterful move by the Aprilia rider that will enter the book of the best.

Espargaro’s teammate Maverick Viñales also had a great race, starting from 11th position. After several passes and a few crashes ahead of him, he managed to reach the podium in third position. In the final laps he had to hold none other than Jack Miller, who seemed to have more tires at the end. The Australian even tried to overtake under braking, but ended up missing the apex of the curve and was overtaken back.

One more who performed his best race in MotoGP was Italian Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team), who finished in second position, just 0.4s behind Bagnaia. It was a lot of celebration for him and the team, which has Valentino Rossi as the owner. He even celebrated with the VR46 flag on his return to the parc ferme.

Binder took advantage of Espargaro’s move and managed to overtake Miller to finish in fifth position. The Ducati rider was sixth, ahead of Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing).

Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ecstar), Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) and Alex Rins (Team Suzuki Ecstar) rounded out the top ten.

Anyway, the race went very smoothly for Bagnaia, who managed to start in front and lead to victory, putting the bad results of the last two races to bed. Quartararo remains the leader of the championship, but with a smaller difference to the second place. He has 172 points against Aleix Espargaro’s 151.

Now, the MotoGP circus takes a break for summer break, and doesn’t return until August. Next stop: British GP.

See the Championship standings after the race in Assen:

MotoGP returns on August 7th with the British GP at the Silverstone circuit.

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