MOTO GP

Quartararo leads GP in Catalunya

The Frenchman Fabio Quartararo surprised this Sunday and won a victory with enough authority in the GP of Catalunya of MotoGP. Starting from third on the grid, he benefited from a good start and already passed the first two, Francesco Bagnaia and Aleix Espargaró, in the first corner.

After that, he shot ahead, doing his test pace. Far superior to the rest, Quartararo secured his 10th MotoGP win and second in 2022.

The Frenchman still benefited greatly from poor races by his title rivals. Bagnaia was taken out of the race at the first corner, when Takaaki Nakagami crashed and hit the Italian's Ducati. Honda also hit Suzuki's Álex Rins and took him out of the race in the same move. Bagnaia still tried to return, but was forced to pick up his motorcycle due to the damage.

Already Enea Bastianini was seventh and for the second race in a row ended up crashing in the first half of the race.

Aleix Espargaró, vice-leader of the world, was in second place until the beginning of the last lap. That's when, when passing the finish line, he thought he had already reached the end of the race, slowed down and started to celebrate. He missed the podium, with Jorge Martín and Johann Zarco passing, and was fifth. Joan Mir was fourth.

The top 10 still had Luca Marini, passed by Espargaró in the last turn, Maverick Viñales. Brad Binder, Miguel Oliveira and Alex Marquez.

With that, Quartararo was 22 points ahead of the world after the race. The next GP takes place in two weeks, in Germany.

Autonews