MotoGP news: Bagnaia takes out Mugello MotoGP Sprint, Martin crashes

Francesco Bagnaia has won the MotoGP Sprint at Mugello to close in on championship leader Jorge Martin, who crashed out.

Francesco Bagnaia won the MotoGP Sprint at Mugello in Italy. Image: Supplied

Marc Marquez finished second after being unable to catch the #1 Ducati despite a late charge, with Pedro Acosta also on the podium.

It was a lightning start for Bagnaia (Ducati Team), passing pole-sitter Martin (Pramac Ducati) to take the holeshot into San Donato.

Both Red Bull KTMs were also significant movers early on as Jack Miller and team-mate Brad Binder gained six and eight places to complete the first lap in 13th and fifth respectively.

As early as the second lap, the attrition was to start after Miguel Oliveira (Trackhouse Racing Aprilia) tried to turn inside Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha), only to lose the front and cause them both to crash out.

Stewards reviewed the clash but deemed it a racing incident, as they did for the next drama at Turn 1.

On Lap 3, Enea Bastianini (Ducati Team) had entered too hot trying to out-brake Martin.

The Spaniard took the inside line to make the pass only for Bastianini to attempt the cut-back where he made contact with the Pramac bike and crashed.

Bagnaia consolidated his lead over the next couple of laps to over a second by the half-race stage.

Seeing his chance of a win slipping away, third placed Marc Marquez increased his pace and worked his way past Martin for second place on Lap 6, with five laps remaining to catch Bagnaia.

Acosta was circulating in fourth place at that point, ahead of the in-form Franco Morbidelli (Pramac Ducati) and Binder. He would slowly break his way from this pair to a relatively lonely fourth place.

Martin is a regular on Sprint race podiums but the championship leader became another casualty of the first turn, losing the front on the eighth lap.

To make matters worse for Martin, his biggest rivals this season made the most of his first Sprint DNF. Bagnaia was clear in front, Marquez was gifted second place, and Acosta moved into third place.

Marquez had the final three laps to catch a deficit of 1.2s to upset Bagnaia.

Stronger in the first half of the lap, Marquez was able to decrease the deficit to 0.8s before Bagnaia responded with a strong finish to take the chequered flag 1.469 seconds ahead.

Acosta was 2.7s behind in a safe third place while Miller did also see the finish line, only gained one further position after the start with a late overtake on Alex Rins (Monster Energy Yamaha) to take 12th.

Martin enters the weekend’s Italian Grand Prix race with only a 27-point lead over Bagnaia and 32 over Marquez.

The 23-lap race is scheduled to commence at 22:00 AEST.

Race results: Sprint race

Pos	Num	Rider	Nat	Team	Bike	Time/Gap
1	1	F. Bagnaia	ITA	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati	19:30.251
2	93	M. Marquez	ESP	Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati	+1.469
3	31	P. Acosta	ESP	Red Bull GASGAS Tech3	KTM	+4.147
4	21	F. Morbidelli	ITA	Prima Pramac Racing	Ducati	+5.421
5	12	M. Viñales	ESP	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia	+7.693
6	33	B. Binder	RSA	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+8.271
7	49	F. Di Giannantonio	ITA	Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team	Ducati	+8.571
8	73	A. Marquez	ESP	Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati	+8.846
9	41	A. Espargaro	ESP	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia	+8.984
10	25	R. Fernandez	ESP	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia	+10.085
11	72	M. Bezzecchi	ITA	Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team	Ducati	+10.199
12	43	J. Miller	AUS	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+13.988
13	42	A. Rins	ESP	Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team	Yamaha	+14.137
14	44	P. Espargaro	ESP	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+18.259
15	5	J. Zarco	FRA	CASTROL Honda LCR	Honda	+18.309
16	30	T. Nakagami	JPN	IDEMITSU Honda LCR	Honda	+19.374
17	37	A. Fernandez	ESP	Red Bull GASGAS Tech3	KTM	+23.060
18	32	L. Savadori	ITA	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia	+24.596
19	10	L. Marini	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	+25.587
DNF	89	J. Martin	ESP	Prima Pramac Racing	Ducati	7 laps
DNF	36	J. Mir	ESP	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	4 laps
DNF	23	E. Bastianini	ITA	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati	2 laps
DNF	88	M. Oliveira	POR	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia	1 laps
DNF	20	F. Quartararo	FRA	Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team	Yamaha	1 laps

Race winner: 11 laps

Riders’ championship

Pos	Rider	Nat	Pts
1	J. Martin	ESP	155
2	F. Bagnaia	ITA	128
3	M. Marquez	ESP	123
4	E. Bastianini	ITA	94
5	M. Viñales	ESP	92
6	P. Acosta	ESP	90
7	B. Binder	RSA	79
8	A. Espargaro	ESP	77
9	F. Di Giannantonio	ITA	65
10	A. Marquez	ESP	44
11	M. Bezzecchi	ITA	42
12	F. Quartararo	FRA	32
13	M. Oliveira	POR	29
14	R. Fernandez	ESP	28
15	J. Miller	AUS	27
16	F. Morbidelli	ITA	21
17	A. Fernandez	ESP	13
18	J. Mir	ESP	13
19	J. Zarco	FRA	9
20	T. Nakagami	JPB	8
21	A. Rins	ESP	7
22	D. Pedrosa	ESP	7
23	P. Espargaro	ESP	0
24	L. Marini	ITA	0
25	S. Bradl	GER	0
26	L. Savadori	ITA	0