MotoGP Catalan GP: Alex Marquez fends off Marc to take…

Alex Marquez held off his elder brother Marc Marquez to take a brilliant MotoGP victory in front of his home crowd at the Catalan Grand Prix.

At the start, Gresini rider Alex Marquez pulled away from pole position and briefly held the advantage, but brother Marc outbraked him into Turn 1 to seize the lead on the factory Ducati.

Initially, the older Marquez was doing enough to stay at the front, but his Gresini-mounted brother did not want to sit behind, and reclaimed the lead at the start of lap 4.

Behind, factory KTM rider Pedro Acosta grabbed third place at the start from Fabio Quartararo, with his stablemate Enea Bastianini rising from ninth on the grid to claim fourth.

The quartet began to pull away from the chasing pack, with Yamaha’s Quartararo falling into the clutches of the Hondas of Johann Zarco and Luca Marini.

While the gap between the Marquez brothers remained under half a second for the next phase of the race, Bastianini started rapidly closing on Acosta and pulled off a brilliant move at Turn 1 on lap 11.

However, Bastianini didn’t have the pace to keep up with his Ducati rivals, turning the final phase of the race into a two-horse phase between Alex and Marc Marquez.

Factory rider Marc Marquez upped the pace on the final laps in a last-gasp bid to snatch victory, but his Gresini rival had the measure of him, stretching the gap to over a second with two laps remaining.

Alex Marquez ultimately held firm, taking the chequered flag to secure his second career victory in the premier class by 1.74s.

Crucially, the result brought Marc Marquez’s championship lead down to 182 points, delaying the latter’s coronation until at least the Japanese Grand Prix at the end of the month.

Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing, Marc Marquez, Ducati Team (Photo by: Lluis Gene / AFP via Getty Images)

Tech3 rider Bastianini claimed a brilliant third place behind the Marquez brothers, clinching his first grand prix podium with KTM.

After losing third place to Bastianini, Acosta suffered a massive drop on his soft rear tyre - as the only rider on the grid not to use mediums - but was able to hold on to fourth to bag a solid haul of points.

Quartararo made some late progress on the factory Yamaha to claim an excellent fifth place, beating the top Aprilia of Trackhouse rider Ai Ogura.

Two-time MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia made a stunning start in Barcelona, storming from 21st on the grid to 12th by the end of the opening lap. He broke into the top 10 after separate crashes for Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio di Giannantonio on lap 2, and continued to gain ground, eventually taking the chequered flag in eighth.

Marini looked on course to claim fifth place on the factory Honda, having inherited the place after Zarco went down on lap 11. But he rapidly tumbled down the order in the final few laps, eventually finishing eighth behind Bagnaia.

Miguel Oliveira was ninth on the Pramac Yamaha, while reigning champion Jorge Martin recovered to 10th on the factory Aprilia.

MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix results

1 - 2
Cla	Rider	#	Bike	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	A. Marquez Gresini Racing	73	Ducati	24	40'14.093				25
2	M. Marquez Ducati Team	93	Ducati	24	+1.740 40'15.833	1.740			20
3	E. Bastianini Tech 3	23	KTM	24	+5.562 40'19.655	3.822			16
4	P. Acosta Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	37	KTM	24	+13.373 40'27.466	7.811			13
5	F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing	20	Yamaha	24	+14.409 40'28.502	1.036			11
6	A. Ogura Trackhouse Racing Team	79	Aprilia	24	+15.055 40'29.148	0.646			10
7	F. Bagnaia Ducati Team	63	Ducati	24	+16.048 40'30.141	0.993			9
8	L. Marini Honda HRC	10	Honda	24	+16.372 40'30.465	0.324			8
9	M. Oliveira Pramac Racing	88	Yamaha	24	+16.937 40'31.030	0.565			7
10	J. Martin Aprilia Racing Team	1	Aprilia	24	+18.492 40'32.585	1.555			6
11	R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team	25	Aprilia	24	+19.489 40'33.582	0.997			5
12	J. Mir Honda HRC	36	Honda	24	+20.159 40'34.252	0.670			4
13	M. Viñales Tech 3	12	KTM	24	+22.792 40'36.885	2.633			3
14	J. Miller Pramac Racing	43	Yamaha	24	+24.351 40'38.444	1.559			2
15	F. Aldeguer Gresini Racing	54	Ducati	24	+24.592 40'38.685	0.241			1
16	S. Chantra Team LCR	35	Honda	24	+37.393 40'51.486	12.801
17	A. Espargaro Honda HRC Test Team	41	Honda	24	+43.202 40'57.295	5.809
dnf	F. Morbidelli Team VR46	21	Ducati	21	+3 Laps 39'23.131	3 Laps		Retirement
dnf	L. Savadori Aprilia Racing Team	32	Aprilia	19	+5 Laps 33'30.224	2 Laps		Retirement
dnf	A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing	42	Yamaha	14	+10 Laps 24'58.645	5 Laps		Retirement
dnf	F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46	49	Ducati	12	+12 Laps 20'59.799	2 Laps		Retirement
dnf	J. Zarco Team LCR	5	Honda	10	+14 Laps 17'58.148	2 Laps		Retirement
dnf	B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	33	KTM	6	+18 Laps 10'56.351	4 Laps		Retirement
dnf	M. Bezzecchi Aprilia Racing Team	72	Aprilia	1	+23 Laps 1'51.265	5 Laps		Retirement
View full results