Marco Bezzecchi dominated the Portuguese Grand Prix for Aprilia on Sunday, leading throughout the race at Portimao.
The Italian tightened his grip on third in the world championship as he led home Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) and Pedro Acosta (KTM).
With nearest challenger Francesco Bagnaia falling, Bezzecchi stretched his advantage in third place to 35 points. That leaves Bagnaia with a miracle to perform in the Valencia finale if he wants to finish the year better than fourth – and officially puts Acosta out of the running for a championship top three.
Bezzecchi took a comfortable lead into the first corner of the race, with Acosta and Marquez slotting in behind the RS-GP25.
Acosta was unable to make life as difficult for Marquez as he had in the Saturday sprint, and had no reply to his countryman when the blue Ducati powered past at the beginning of lap two.
Directly behind them, Bagnaia pulled off a similar move on Fabio Quartararo, who would spend the rest of the afternoon in defensive mode.
Saturday’s fireworks among the top three were nowhere to be seen in the grand prix, as gaps gradually developed between Bezzecchi, Marquez and Acosta. At one-third distance, Acosta’s lap times began to drop away, with Marquez’s pace also dropping as half-distance approached. That’s when Bezzecchi began to get quicker, truly breaking the back of the race and setting himself up with a cushion to manage his tyres over the final third.
This all made for a static race as far as the podium positions were concerned – despite a brief flurry from Acosta late in the race getting him back within a second of Marquez at the flag.
Fourth place also looked sewn up as half-distance drew nearer until Bagnaia lost control of his factory Ducati on lap 11. Following his puncture last time out in Malaysia, yet another Sunday DNF was added to his late-season collection.
That gifted fourth to Fermin Aldeguer, who, like Brad Binder behind him, had had to work hard to get past Quartararo during the middle third of the race.
Quartararo did well to hold sixth place on the recalcitrant Yamaha. He would have had another Frenchman behind him at the flag had not Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) faded rapidly late in the race, allowing Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) and Fabio di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) to relegate him to ninth.
Pol Espargaro rounded out the top 10 for Tech3 KTM, while Miguel Oliveira picked up two points for 14th in what could be the last home race for the Portuguese Pramac Yamaha rider. Nicolo Bulega took the last point on offer in what was a solid MotoGP debut for the factory Ducati squad, where he is replacing the injured Marc Marquez.
MotoGP Portuguese GP - Race results
RACE
| Cla | Rider | # | Bike | Laps | Time | Interval | km/h | Retirement | Points | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  M. Bezzecchi Aprilia Racing Team |
72 |  |
Aprilia | 25 |
41'13.616 |
25 | ||||||
| 2 |  A. Marquez Gresini Racing |
73 |  |
Ducati | 25 |
+2.583 41'16.199 |
2.583 | 20 | |||||
| 3 | P. Acosta Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
37 |  |
KTM | 25 |
+3.188 41'16.804 |
0.605 | 16 | |||||
| 4 | F. Aldeguer Gresini Racing |
54 |  |
Ducati | 25 |
+12.860 41'26.476 |
9.672 | 13 | |||||
| 5 |  B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
33 |  |
KTM | 25 |
+16.327 41'29.943 |
3.467 | 11 | |||||
| 6 |  F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing |
20 |  |
Yamaha | 25 |
+18.442 41'32.058 |
2.115 | 10 | |||||
| 7 |  A. Ogura Trackhouse Racing Team |
79 |  |
Aprilia | 25 |
+19.255 41'32.871 |
0.813 | 9 | |||||
| 8 | F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46 |
49 |  |
Ducati | 25 |
+20.612 41'34.228 |
1.357 | 8 | |||||
| 9 | J. Zarco Team LCR |
5 |  |
Honda | 25 |
+21.040 41'34.656 |
0.428 | 7 | |||||
| 10 | P. Espargaro Tech 3 |
44 |  |
KTM | 25 |
+26.517 41'40.133 |
5.477 | 6 | |||||
| 11 | L. Marini Honda HRC |
10 |  |
Honda | 25 |
+28.226 41'41.842 |
1.709 | 5 | |||||
| 12 |  J. Miller Pramac Racing |
43 |  |
Yamaha | 25 |
+29.717 41'43.333 |
1.491 | 4 | |||||
| 13 | A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing |
42 |  |
Yamaha | 25 |
+30.372 41'43.988 |
0.655 | 3 | |||||
| 14 |  M. Oliveira Pramac Racing |
88 |  |
Yamaha | 25 |
+31.621 41'45.237 |
1.249 | 2 | |||||
| 15 | N. Bulega Ducati Team |
11 |  |
Ducati | 25 |
+32.072 41'45.688 |
0.451 | 1 | |||||
| 16 | L. Savadori Aprilia Racing Team |
32 |  |
Aprilia | 25 |
+39.869 41'53.485 |
7.797 | ||||||
| 17 |  S. Chantra Team LCR |
35 |  |
Honda | 25 |
+1'01.999 42'15.615 |
22.130 | ||||||
| 18 | E. Bastianini Tech 3 |
23 |  |
KTM | 23 |
+2 Laps 41'27.430 |
2 Laps | ||||||
| dnf | F. Bagnaia Ducati Team |
63 | |
Ducati | 10 |
+15 Laps 17'25.293 |
13 Laps | Accident | |||||
| dnf | J. Mir Honda HRC |
36 | |
Honda | 2 |
+23 Laps 4'00.747 |
8 Laps | Retirement | |||||
| dnf | F. Morbidelli Team VR46 |
21 |  |
Ducati | 0 |
+25 Laps 23.766 |
2 Laps | Retirement | |||||
| View full results | |||||||||||||
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