Aleix Espargaro rode the perfect race to seal his first MotoGP Sprint victory at his home round of the championship at Catalunya in Barcelona.
The Aprilia Racing rider, who qualified second on the front row alongside pole man Francesco Bagnaia, took the lead on lap seven and broke clear, extending his lead to win by just under two seconds from title leader Bagnaia.
Espargaro’s team-mate Maverick Viñales pushed Bagnaia for the runner-up spot in a last-lap battle but had to settle for third on the rostrum behind the Italian.
Red Bull KTM’s Brad Binder was eight-tenths back in fourth as he finished clear of Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati), who edged out Miguel Oliveira (RNF Aprilia) on the dash to the line for fifth.
Marc Marquez was the top Honda rider in 11th for the Repsol team, with the 30-year-old crossing the line behind his brother Alex (Gresini Ducati).
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was a lowly 18th, three places behind team-mate Franco Morbidelli.
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Light spots of rain on the warm-up lap briefly threatened to cause havoc at the start of the 12-lap race, but there was no further precipitation when the Sprint showdown got underway.
Bagnaia made a flying start to lead into the first corner from Viñales, Martin and Espargaro, who quickly pounced for third on Martin at Turn 4.
British Grand Prix winner Espargaro then picked up another position on the second lap with a move on the brakes on Viñales into Turn 1.
Martin, Binder, Marco Bezzecchi (VR46 Ducati), Oliveira and Marquez were next.
Martin made a big lunge on Viñales on lap three at Turn 2 and ran wide off the track. The incident was placed under investigation but Martin, who dropped to seventh, was not deemed to have undertaken a shortcut on his return to the track and no further action was taken.
Espargaro now had his sights set on Bagnaia and began to eat into the Ducati rider’s slender lead of 0.2s.
By the halfway point in the race, Espargaro had closed onto the rear wheel of Bagnaia.
After a failed attempt on the brakes into Turn 1 on the sixth lap, Espargaro made the same move work on the next lap, going under Bagnaia and holding his line on the exit.
He then quickly began to make a break for it, pulling half a second ahead of the reigning champion by lap eight, with a slight gap back to the battle for third involving Viñales, Binder and Oliveira.
With two laps to go, Espargaro was in total control by 1.1s from Bagnaia, who was coming under pressure from Viñales for the runner-up spot.
Viñales tried all he could to find a way past the factory Ducati on the last lap, but Bagnaia held out for second place as Espargaro wrapped up a convincing win by 1.989s.
Bagnaia has increased his lead in the championship to 66 points over Martin, with Bezzecchi nine points back in third.
Binder was 2.857s down on the winner in fourth ahead of Martin, Oliveira, and Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati) in seventh.
An out-of-sorts Bezzecchi finished eighth with Enea Bastianini (Lenovo Ducati) and Alex Marquez finalising the top ten.
Luca Marini (VR46 Ducati) was 12th behind Marc Marquez, while Fabio di Giannantonio took 13th on the Gresini Ducati.
Jack Miller was off the pace in 16th on the Red Bull KTM and LCR Honda riders Iker Lecuona and Takaaki Nakagami, and Repsol’s Joan Mir were unable to improve on their qualifying results, filling the final three places in 19th, 20th and 21st respectively.
Pol Espargaro crashed out on the GASGAS Tech 3 KTM at Turn 5 on lap four after running straight into the gravel and tumbling off.
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