MotoGP 2023: Francesco Bagnaia fights off two KTMs to win the Spanish GP

Much like the sprint race on Saturday, the main race was also red-flagged during the first lap. It was like deja vu as Jack Miller got off to a great start on his factory KTM machine while Aleix Espargaro slipped back down from P1. At Turn 2, Fabio Quartarao got sandwiched between Marco Bezzecchi and Miguel Oliveira which resulted in a crash and brought out the red flags.While Bezzecchi carried on, Fabio and Oliviera were wiped out with the latter suffering a dislocated shoulder. This is Oliveira’s second major race crash this year, the first one happened in Portimao a few races ago.

After the red flag, the race resumed with the original grid order and Fabio was declared fit to race again. However, the Frenchman was given a long lap penalty which he served incorrectly and had to do it again. Fellow Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli also had to serve a long lap penalty for the crash in yesterday’s sprint.

The restart saw Brad Binder jump to the front of the pack and his teammate Jack Miller was right behind him. Aleix Espargaro failed to capitalise on his P1 start for the fourth time this weekend and slipped back down the order. Unlike the sprint, where he crashed out, the Spaniard managed to finish in a respectable P5. His teammate Maverick Vinales was not having a great day and was just inside the top 10. However, during the last lap, the chain on his bike broke and fell off, resulting in a DNF.
At the front of the pack, the fight between the two KTMs was a thrill to watch. However, Brad managed to hang onto the lead. Behind them were the Ducatis of Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin. Miller had some contact with Bagnaia and Martin but managed to finish in P3. He tried to fend off the charge by Bagnaia for a long while but a few mistakes in Lap 15 meant that he had to give up the position. However, this weekend in Jerez has shown the advancements KTM has made with their machines, scoring podium finishes in the sprint and main race. They were also able to fight with the Ducatis and did not seem to punish their tyres too much. The result achieved this weekend has propelled Brad Binder and Jack Miller to third and fourth in the Riders’ Championship, respectively.

After not finishing the last two races, Bagnaia came back to the top step of the podium. His nail-biting battle with Binder during the last few laps of the race ultimately resulted in him crossing the line in P1. The next closest Ducati rider was Jorge Martin who finished fourth. Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio, the two Gresini riders, also scored a decent haul of points, finishing P8 and P12, respectively. Luca Marini started the race in ninth position but finished it in sixth. Interestingly, he is now sixth in the Riders’ Championship as well.
There were a number of crashes after the restart, the first one being Alex Rins who managed to rejoin the race but eventually went back to the pits and retired. On the second lap after the restart, Joan Mir also crashed, continuing his string of crashes in 2023. Johann Zarco and Marco Bezzecchi went into the gravel during Lap 17 of the race. Bezzecchi, who had been leading the Riders’ Championship, is now in second due to not scoring any points in the race.
The highest-scoring Honda was that of Takaaki Nakagami in P9 while Stefan Bradl was the other Honda rider with a points-finish in P14. As the flag fell, the two Yamaha riders finished tenth and eleventh, with Fabio being the lead rider in blue. Considering the fact that they both had to serve a long lap penalty and Fabio had to do it twice, this was the best they could extract from the race.