Quartararo Takes British MotoGP Win To Extend Championship Lead
Calum Gill 14:08 29/08/2021
Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo strengthened his hold on the title race by dominating the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, as Aprilia bagged its first podium of the MotoGP era.
Championship leader Quartararo - who gambled on a soft front tyre - was down to fourth early on, but methodically worked his way to the front of the pack and controlled the proceedings to bank his fifth win of the campaign. He was joined on the podium by Silverstone’s previous MotoGP winner Álex Rins (Suzuki) and an emotional Aleix Espargaró, who survived a last-lap duel with Jack Miller to claim a long-awaited podium for Aprilia. It was Aprilia’s first premier-class podium since Jeremy McWilliams finished third in the 500cc race at this same track in 2000, and Espargaró’s first MotoGP podium since he took second place on the Forward Yamaha in the 2014 Aragon Grand Prix.
After Pol Espargaró delivered Honda their first pole of 2021, the Espargaró brothers ran 1-2 in the opening laps, with Aleix having overtaken Quartararo on the straight and then picking off Francesco Bagnaia - who’d had a bad start from the front row but reclaimed second using Ducati’s grunt on the Hangar straight - at Brooklands. As the Aprilia rider then lunged down the inside of his brother but couldn’t complete the move, Quartararo dealt with Bagnaia for third and set out after the sibling duo, getting past the elder Espargaró just a couple of laps later at The Loop.
The following lap, he eased past the younger Espargaró down the inside of Farm, beginning the breakaway that his rivals would have feared. By the time the Espargaró brothers traded position, Aleix having snuck by Pol, Quartararo was already a second up the road, and his lead gradually grew from there, reaching nearly triple what it was by the halfway point. The Espargaró pairing had been broken up by the charging Rins by that point, but the brothers would be reunited when Aleix Espargaró faltered in his resistance, running wide and opening the door to the Suzuki. Yet Rins too was unable to make any meaningful inroads on Quartararo, only getting back within thee seconds on the final lap, when Quartararo eased off.
Ducati works rider Miller, who rode a methodical race, looked to deliver heartbreak to Aprilia by briefly getting into third place on the last tour, only for Espargaró to respond and bring the RS-GP home by a tenth. Pol Espargaró couldn’t quite keep pace with the pair but settled for a fifth place in what was comfortably his best race as a Honda rider so far. Though Joan Mir ran with team-mate Rins early on, he had nowhere near the same pace and particularly struggled towards the end, falling into the clutches of the chasing pack and getting swallowed up by the two KTMs of Brad Binder and Tech3 outgoing Iker Lecuona, and LCR Honda’s Álex Márquez. He ended up ninth.
Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco, who was level with Mir as Quartararo’s closest rival coming into the race, was a low-key 11th, losing out to Danilo Petrucci (Tech3 KTM). Bagnaia had a dreadful race after leading early on, never looking comfortable after an early error allowed the two Suzukis through. He eventually slumped to 14th. His mentor Valentino Rossi (Petronas Yamaha SRT) had a similar race, running sixth early on but ending up a disappointing 18th, ahead of only his newcomer team-mate Jake Dixon. Six-time MotoGP champion Marc Márquez suffered his sixth separate crash in eight races, having clashed with Jorge Martín thanks to an optimistic overtaking attempt through the Vale chicane. The pair were the only retirements in the race.
