Bagnaia holds off Quartararo for home Misano MotoGP win

Francesco Bagnaia brilliantly held off a fast charging Fabio Quartararo to claim his second consecutive MotoGP win in Misano. 

As the lights went out, it was Bagnaia from pole who got the best launch to retain his lead. 

After initially getting past Jack Miller into turn one, Fabio Quartararo was then repassed by the Australian on the outside of turn two. 

Bagnaia’s opening lap was a sensational one as he already gapped team-mate Miller by 1.2 seconds. 

Jorge Martin crashed on lap four after several position swaps with Quartararo for third. The Pramac rider lost the front at turn 14. 

The gap between Bagnaia and Miller stabilised at around 1.3 seconds, while a similar margin was in Miller’s favour over Quartararo. 

The man on the move with seven laps gone was Enea Bastianini as he reeled in Aleix Espargaro and Marc Marquez, before completing back-to-back overtakes for fourth.

Bagnaia’s lead then doubled on lap nine (2.5 seconds) as Miller ran wide at turn 12, as did Quartararo in third. 

As the race approached midrace distance, Quartararo began closing down Miller for second. 

Quartararo then got ahead of Miller with 14 laps to go - turn six. The Ducati rider tried to get back past on the main straight but was unable to so under braking.

After making his way from the third row up to fifth, Alex Rins suffered yet another race crash - his sixth this season. Iker Lecuona also had a fall a few laps prior.

Then came a scary moment for Bagnaia as his rear tyre marked up quite considerably and Quartararo reduced a 2.8 second lead to 1.2s. 

Bagnaia responded on lap 21 to increase the gap back to 1.5 seconds, however, Quartararo continued to close in during the final five laps. 

Quartararo reduced the gap to just three tenths at the start of the penultimate lap, but Bagnaia’s impressive sector three enabled him to keep the lead into the final corner. 

Quartararo got as close as we saw all race on the final tour, however, Bagnaia put in a sensational final lap to hold on, while Bastianini came home third for a maiden MotoGP podium. 

Miller was relegated to sixth on the final lap as Marquez and Mir both got ahead of the factory Ducati. 

Miller regained fifth after the flag as Mir was dropped a position for exceeding track limits.