Bastianini wins, Quartararo retires after Marquez clash

Making his MotoGP race return after a 112-day absence following surgery on his broken right arm, six-time premier class world champion Marquez leaped from 13th on the grid to sixth off the line.

The Honda rider swooped around Quartararo – who started sixth – at Turn 1, but exiting Turn 3 suffered a big moment on the rear end.

Quartararo was caught unsighted and crashed into the back of Marquez, the Frenchman getting clobbered by his own Yamaha as he slid across the asphalt.

Suffering some abrasions to his chest, Quartararo suffered no serious injuries in the incident.

The incident lodged Yamaha bodywork into the back of Marquez’s bike, which then locked at the rear when he engaged his ride height device on the exit of Turn 7.

This led to LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami running into the back of Marquez in a similar incident to Quartararo’s, with the Japanese rider eliminated on the spot as Marquez retired in pitlane at the end of the opening lap.

At the front, Bagnaia finished second in a thrilling scrap with Bastianini and is now just 10 points behind Quartararo in the standings.

While the chaos involving Quartararo and Marquez ensued behind, Bagnaia converted pole to the holeshot ahead of the fast-starting Brad Binder on the KTM.

Jack Miller quickly returned to the second spot he started in with a move on Binder into Turn 1 on the third lap, with Gresini’s Bastianini passing factory Ducati counterpart Miller at Turn 15 three tours later.

This battling gave Bagnaia a lead of over seven tenths as he began his seventh tour, though Bastianini had wiped this down to just 0.3s over that lap.

Bastianini used the superior speed of his Gresini-run Ducati GP21 relative to Bagnaia’s factory GP22 to outdrag his future teammate into Turn 1 at the start of lap eight.

But the Gresini rider would make a major mistake into Turn 12 a lap later and allowed Bagnaia to return to the front of the pack.

The gap between Bagnaia and Bastianini would fluctuate between seven tenths and four tenths up until the end of lap 19, when the latter edged slightly closer again.

Despite his Gresini Ducati squirming under braking for Turn 12, Bastianini was able to keep Bagnaia in sight and pressure him over the next few laps.

But it wouldn’t be until Turn 7 on the last lap that Bastianini found a safe run on Bagnaia to take the lead away from him, the Gresini rider…