MotoGP: Bagnaia races a hat-trick in Spielberg

In front of about 92,000 spectators on Sunday, Bajnaya also benefited from a brake defect suffered by his compatriot Inna Batianini, who won his first pole position on Saturday. After Bastianini’s retirement, the 25-year-old kept the competition at a safe distance and claimed his fifth win of the season and ninth overall in MotoGP ahead of world championship leader Fabio Quartararo of France over Yamaha and his Ducati teammate Jack Miller.

For Ducati, it was the seventh win in nine races since 2016 at Spielberg. “Landlord” KTM won the remaining two races. Last year’s winner Brad Bender had no chance of getting a place on the podium this time from 12th place. In the world championship standings, Quartaro is now 32 points ahead of Spaniard Alex Espargaro, who led Aprilia to fifth. Bagnaia is 44 points behind the leader in third place.

Quartaro breaks the dominance of Ducati

For the Ducati fleet, which was so well ahead in qualifying, the race didn’t quite go according to plan despite Bagnaya’s win. After Bastianini’s troubles, Bagnaia quickly dominated the race ahead of Miller and Martin, but Quartaro, who started behind four Ducatis, used the battle between the latter two to advance to second place. “It was one of the best races of my life. It’s really draining, and it takes really physical effort,” said the French world champion. “Every lap was a qualifying lap because the planning here has a lot of revving.”

Bagnaia, who had won five of the last eight races, still needed to be fully focused to the finish. This was a long race. I was worried about the choice of tires and that’s why I basically tried to keep my cool when I was up front,” said Pico. Quartararo admitted that in the end he had hopes of victory. “Who knows. “If the race had gone a little longer, it might be enough to fight at the front,” said the 23-year-old.

The Japanese dominate the other classes

The decisions of Moto2 and Moto3 were previously in the hands of the Japanese. Ai Ogura led Kalex in the Moto2 Championship by a point after beating Thailand’s Somkiat Chantra in a crash fair race. Brett Jake Dixon took third place by a respectable margin. Young KTM star Pedro Acosta finished fourth behind after suffering a hip fracture recently.

In Moto3, Husqvarna rider Ayumu Sasaki prevailed, despite a long double penalty, before compatriot Tatsuki Suzuki on Honda and Spaniard David Munoz on KTM. Sergio Garcia continues to lead in the World Championships, this time driving his GasGas machine to fifth. In both races, there were no problems with the new Münzer chicane 2A-2B.

Nearly 170,000 fans on race weekend

The Austrian Grand Prix was also a success for the organizers. Exactly 167,850 spectators were there live for the race weekend in Upper Styria. One of the most prominent of them was the Spanish Formula 1 star Fernando Alonso. Before the main race on Sunday, Hubert von Goisern also gave a standout musical performance with the Austrian national anthem played in Western style with acoustic guitar.

The area around the Red Bull circuit continues to move even after Formula 1 and MotoGP. Early next weekend, a memorial race for Rupert Hollaus, who has sold out 400 riders in 15 classes, will take place on the circuit, and Italian motorcycle legend Giacomo Agostini will be honored again and again.

Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg

Sunday: