Bagnaia Wins Dutch TT As Quartararo Crashes Into Espargaró
Calum Gill 14:18 26/06/2022
Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia won the 2022 edition of the Dutch TT at Assen, as MotoGP championship leader Fabio Quartararo crashed into his main title rival Aleix Espargaró.
The fifth lap of the race marked comfortably the most contentious incident of the 2022 title race so far, as Quartararo lunged down the inside of Espargaró at Strubben for second place and went wide, crashing moments later and taking Espargaró with him into the gravel. The Aprilia man was able to roll out and continue in 15th, while Quartararo remounted but struggled to extract any meaningful pace in the likely-damaged Yamaha M1 - pulling into the pits and then rejoining to have a massive highside at, again, Strubben. It marked the reigning champion’s first MotoGP retirement since 2021. Quartararo was having to find a way through on Espargaró in the first place because he’d allowed the Aprilia man through while running wide at Turn 1 in an attempt to put opening-lap pressure on Bagnaia.
He’d also dropped behind Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martín but immediately re-passed him and then pulled off an actual clean move on Espargaró at Strubben that nonetheless wasn’t enough to keep him ahead for the rest of the lap. Bagnaia, Espargaró and Quartararo then established themselves as the lead group, but Quartararo’s ill-fated overtaking attempt on Espargaró suddenly made things so much more comfortable for the Italian, handing him a lead of a second over VR46 rookie and fellow Valentino Rossi protege Marco Bezzecchi. Quartararo was later, to the paddock's surprise, assessed with a long-lap penalty for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in August.
Fabio Quartararo crashes into Aleix Espargaró at Strubben on the fifth lap of the 2022 Dutch TT.
That lead started to oscillate a bit when rain drops threatened to turn into something more for the final 10 laps of the race, but anything close to a proper shower wouldn’t follow - and Bagnaia comfortably saw out the race. Bezzecchi bagged the first rookie podium of the season (and his VR46’s maiden podium in MotoGP) behind him, while Maverick Viñales celebrated his first podium on the Aprilia - having last visited the rostrum on the Yamaha at the same track last year. Viñales’ podium was made possible by him seeing off a late attack from Jack Miller, who thrived in the uncertain late-race conditions, having recovered from 10th after serving a long-lap penalty for impeding none other than Viñales in qualifying.
Miller lunged down the inside of Viñales at the Geert Timmer chicane on the penultimate lap but couldn’t make the move stick, instead dropping into the clutches of Red Bull KTM’s Brad Binder. However, the real show was yet to come. Charging from 15th place, Espargaró arrived on the back of the duo and passed both in one move into the Geert Timmer chicane on the final lap, securing fourth place and reducing Quartararo’s championship lead to 21 points. Binder also found his way through Miller for fifth, while Martín - who ran third for much of the race but floundered once grip worsened - settled for eighth. Joan Mir was bizarrely hit by Miguel Oliveira’s KTM on the grid, and ended up beating Oliveira to eighth by a tenth of a second - with Mir’s Suzuki team-mate Álex Rins another three tenths back.
Quartararo, who arrived to Espargaró’s pit box after the race to apologise, wasn’t the only Yamaha rider to hit the deck, with Franco Morbidelli likewise falling at Strubben - albeit just the once - soon after being assessed a double long-lap penalty for failing to serve the original penalty he’d incurred for impeding in practice. RNF Yamaha rookie Darryn Binder fell, too, his M1 torn to pieces by the gravel trap at Stekkenwal, while Andrea Dovizioso’s 16th-place finish ensured Yamaha took no points out of Assen. The only rider to retire aside from the three Yamahas was Raúl Fernández of Tech3 KTM, the rookie pulling into the pits with a reported case of arm pump.
