Bagnaia closes points gap to Martin with sprint win

Francesco Bagnaia emerged on top in a thrilling duel with Jorge Martin to take victory in the sprint for MotoGP’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Ducati’s Bagnaia made a slow launch after qualifying on pole, but showed scintillating pace to overtake Pramac rival Martin for the lead on lap 8 of 13 and score another crucial win over his title rival.

It was Bagnaia’s first sprint success since the Austrian Grand Prix in August and allowed him to close four points off Martin in the championship standings.

At the start of the race, Martin made a lightning getaway from second on the grid to grab the holeshot into Turn 1, with KTM’s Brad Binder further demoting polesitter Bagnaia to third.

But Bagnaia took a little under a lap to repass Binder and then set off about Martin, who had already pulled out an advantage of more than half a second.

The gap between the two fluctuated for the early stages of the races, but by the sixth lap Bagnaia was right on the tail of Martin’s Pramac.

The decisive move for victory came on the eighth lap when, under severe pressure from Bagnaia, Martin ran wide into the Turn 13 right-hander.

That allowed Bagnaia to scoop through and take the lead, with the Italian rider then smartly covering the inside line into the Turn 14 hairpin.

Martin remained within touching distance of Bagnaia for the remainder of the race, but the two-time champion had enough to cover him, crossing the finish line with a winning margin of 0.285s.

The top two were once again in the class of their own, with third-placed Enea Bastianini slipping a second behind as he completed a podium lockout for Ducati.

Gresini’s Marc Marquez jumped from seventh to fourth by the second lap as he quickly rebounded from a crash in qualifying, but lacked the pace to take the fight to the podium runners – with a mistake at Turn 13 in the closing stages forcing him to turn his attention towards the Tech3 GasGas bike of Pedro Acosta.

Acosta eventually finished as the best KTM runner in fifth ahead of Binder, who slipped down the order after making a rapid launch from fourth on the grid.

Brad Binder, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Fabio Quartararo was an impressive seventh for the resurgent Yamaha squad, which was down to one bike following team-mate Alex Rins’ withdrawal due to flu.

The final points-paying positions…