Francesco Bagnaia’s thrilling last lap pass saw Enea Bastianini win the Aragon MotoGP Grand Prix, breaking Bagnaia’s record of four wins in a row. Bastianini’s fourth win of the season.
“I got [Bagnaia] Bastianini said in an NBC Sports report: “I was able to win this race and now I’m going to Japan.”
Bastianini stalked Bagnaia for the entire race. On the final lap, Bagnaia was forced to balance his need to score points for his 20th championship with the desire to achieve his fifth consecutive victory as only the third rider in MotoGP history. The need for points was even more important as his leader Fabio Quartararo in the championship crashed on Lap 1 and didn’t score at all.
Bagnaia entered the race, shaving off Quartararo’s lead by 61 points in the final four rounds. He scored another 20 points at the Aragon Grand Prix with five rounds to go and he is 10 behind.
“It was great,” said Bagnaia. “I did my best and on the last lap it looked like I had more traction. Enea did an incredible job all weekend. It’s already known that he and Fabio are the fastest. However, Fabio suffered an unfortunate crash on his first lap.
“I just did my best and on the last lap I felt I couldn’t pass Enea because I had already taken too many risks on the previous laps. Twenty points were important and I was fine.”
very expensive sunday @Fabio Q20world championship hope! 💥
Luckily Fabio was not seriously injured and will be back in the fight next weekend!🙌#Aragon GP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/texxuflvXE
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 18, 2022
The championship contention took a dramatic turn on Lap 1. Marc Márquez, who has returned to competing in MotoGP after undergoing multiple surgeries on his arm, has decided that is a factor.
In the first two turns of the race, Marquez passed seven riders to enter the lead pack. A rear tire slipped in Turn 3 and Quartararo had nowhere to go. Quartararo clipped Marquez’s bike and he was pitched by Yamaha, finishing bottom and scoring no points.
“It was really bad luck,” Marquez told NBC Sports. “There was a moment in Turn 3 when I lost the rear and Fabio was very close as usual on the first lap, but he got hit.
Marquez suffered heavy damage and was forced to retire from the race.
Bagnaia was on the front lines of the pack, chasing the record book.
Leading early on, he briefly relinquished the lead to Bastianini until Bastianini entered the corner hard and pushed hard. Bagnaia reclaimed the top spot, but was unable to shake his Ducati teammate in 2023. Bastianini stalked Bagnaia for most of the race, but he knew the pass had to be squeaky clean. Exiting the turn midway through the final lap, he completed his pass.
The two leaders crossed under the checkers 0.042 seconds apart as Bagnaia pulled up to the tires behind the winner.
A 1-2 finish gave Bastianini and Bagnaia the Manufacturers’ Championship for Ducati.
The battle for the final podium ended at the end of the race. With his second place remaining, Aleix his Espargaro overtook Brad his Binder dramatically. Jack Miller rounded out the top five as these three of his riders were eight seconds apart of him about ten minutes.
Espargaro, who was riding with a broken finger, has narrowed the gap to 17 points and is in contention for the title.
In Moto2, rookie Pedro Acosta beat Alon Cane and points leader Augusto Fernández to claim his second win of the season.
Fernandez has a slight 7 point advantage over Ai Ogura in 4th place.
Americans Joe Roberts and Cameron Beauvier finished 9th and 11th respectively.