Márquez Leads Honda 1-2 As Quartararo Wraps Up MotoGP Title
Calum Gill 14:28 24/10/2021
Fabio Quartararo became Yamaha’s first MotoGP champion since 2015, sealing the title with two races to spare after Francesco Bagnaia crashed from the lead at Misano, while Marc Márquez took a second straight win.
Poleman Bagnaia looked well on course to take his second Misano win of the season and keep the title fight going into Portimao, but fell a crash at the very end immediately made Quartararo - charging from the back of the grid - champion. It also created the first Repsol Honda 1-2 since 2017, led by Márquez, who claimed his third win of the season. Team-mate Jack Miller had bailed out of a potential lunge on Bagnaia at the start and slipped behind the fast-starting KTM of Miguel Oliveira, only to repass him almost immediately.
It left Miller serving as rear gunner to Bagnaia in the opening laps, with Márquez having likewise passed Oliveira and beginning to hound the Ducati pair - and the buffer offered by Miller evaporated on the fourth lap when he lost the front into the left-hand penultimate corner, tumbling through the gravel at speed. Márquez immediately eradicated the gap to Bagnaia, settling in to run within three tenths of Bagnaia for much of the race, but never getting close enough to attempt a lunge against the Italian. With five laps to go, Bagnaia finally looked to have broken Márquez’s resistance, establishing a lead of nearly a second but then mimicking Miller’s crash into the penultimate corner.
Quartararo was running fifth by then. Starting a career-worst 15th, he dropped two places off the line, but was up to 14th by the end of the opening lap. He broke into the top 10 by the end of lap six, at the expense of Tech3 KTM’s Iker Lecuona. On lap eight, he outfoxed Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martín through the top 10 left-hander, with Martín then going on to have a fast crash at Turn 1 while running in 10th place. Quartararo then reeled in a group of riders battling for fifth, and team-mate Franco Morbidelli, who had held the position in the early going, was his next victim, going backwards through the order as he continues to struggle for fitness.
The Valentino Rossi-tribute liveried Sky VR46 Avintia of Luca Marini was next, Marini opening the door with a minor error, while with 10 laps to go Quartararo picked off Álex Rins for sixth. A bold overtake into Curvone on Aleix Espargaró followed, taking Quartararo to a fifth-place that looked likely to be his finishing position, with nothing but daylight ahead. However, Bagnaia then crashed, promoting not only Márquez but his team-mate Pol Espargaró, who held third for most of the race after passing Oliveira and got to celebrate his first podium as a Honda rider in second.
And while Oliveira should’ve completed the podium, which would’ve broken a rotten run of results for the three-time KTM race winner, he crashed mere moments after Bagnaia. This gave the chance for Quartararo to celebrate his title with a podium, yet there was still the matter of Enea Bastianini, the Avintia rookie increasingly prone to late-race charges. Bastianini reeled in Quartararo on the final lap, lunging down the inside of the Turn 14 right-hander and snatching the podium from the Yamaha man. It was a move that may have big ramifications for the manufacturers’ title race, but could obviously do nothing to prevent Quartararo’s coronation. Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco ended his spell of poor results in fifth, while Rins settled for sixth in what was a massively attritional race.
The two Aprilias of Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales completed the top eight, just a tenth apart, with Viñales celebrating his best finish yet for the Noale manufacturer. Marini converted a shock front-row start into ninth, followed home by mentor Valentino Rossi in what should be the MotoGP legend’s final race on home soil. KTM rider Brad Binder crashed on the sighting lap and started from the pitlane, before incurring a long-lap penalty for track limits - the same fate that would befall Andrea Dovizioso (Petronas Yamaha SRT) and Morbidelli. Binder finished 11th, ahead of Ducati test rider Michele Pirro, Dovizioso and Morbidelli. Suzuki’s Joan Mir initially jumped ahead of Quartararo through the start and looked to follow him through the field after dropping behind the Yamaha man, but incurred a double long-lap penalty for having jumped the start.
He then collected Tech3 KTM’s Danilo Petrucci in a failed Turn 2 lunge, seemingly offering his apologies to Petrucci right away as they shared a hug in the run-off. A few laps later, crashes followed for Takaaki Nakagami and Iker Lecuona, both running in the lower reaches of the points, while Nakagami’s LCR Honda team-mate Álex Márquez had to retire with an unspecified technical issue - with it unclear whether the two LCR men had made contact. Nakagami did remount and was ultimately the final finisher in 15th.
