At the halfway point of the Motul Dutch Grand Prix, on the 13th of 26 scheduled laps, the leading rider, Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo Team), set the fastest lap of the race while trying to shake off Marco Bezzecchi, who was following closely behind him.
On the next lap, it was the official Aprilia Racing rider who improved on his rival's time, becoming more and more threatening.
On the following lap, the fifteenth, the reference time was further lowered by Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team), who had just moved into third position and was chasing the leading pair.
It seemed like the right premise for a photo-finish finale. Did it go like this?
Marc Marquez did his best to avoid it. In the final two laps, he made the decisive push and definitively defeated Bezzecchi, who until that moment had had the Spaniard in his sights. Meanwhile, Bagnaia had already been out of the game for a while. The Spaniard thus collected 25 points for the sixth time this year, on a bitter Sunday for his closest rival in the title race. Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP) in fact fell on the sixth lap while engaged in a body to body with Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) for fourth place. He came away with a fracture to his left hand. In the championship he slipped to -68.
The first laps
At the start the most effective was Bagnaia, who took the lead followed by Alex Marquez, Marc Marquez, poleman Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) and Bezzecchi, fifth.
The rider from Rimini slipped past Quartararo at the chicane preceding the finish line and a lap later, at the same point, he overtook Alex Marquez, who in the meantime had ceded second place to his brother Marc.
Alex Marquez's accident
The number 73 was also overtaken by Acosta on the fourth lap, with contact included. Two laps later, while the Spanish pair continued to fight for fourth place, the crash. Coming out of turn 5, while they were almost side by side, further sparks flew and Alex Marquez ended up on the ground.
His brother Marc had been in the lead since the previous lap, in which he had brought down Bagnaia, who was also beaten on the eighth lap by Bezzecchi and then finished fourth behind Acosta.
Bagnaia reacts
The Ducati factory rider managed to react on the 14th lap, when he got back into the podium zone by overtaking the KTM rider. On the next lap he signed the best lap of the race, improving on the times set shortly before by Marc Marquez and Bezzecchi, both in front of him.
The number 63 managed to get to within a second of the leader, but without becoming dangerous. Bezzecchi instead seemed capable of launching an attack on Marc Marquez until three laps from the end. Then he surrendered to the Spaniard.
Acosta, in Bagnaia's wake almost until the end, finished fourth alone ahead of Maverick Vinales (Red Bull KTM Tech3), who climbed from tenth position. For him, a delay of 6 seconds from the winner. For the Italian, third, it was about two and a half. Bezzecchi's gap was six tenths.
The top ten
Sixth place for Fabio Di Giannantonio (Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team), followed by his teammate Franco Morbidelli, Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Racing MotoGP) and Enea Bastianini (Red Bull KTM Tech3), who started 20th and finished ninth. Tenth place for Quartararo, who after starting from pole progressively lost ground and saw his race compromised when he went off the track to avoid Fermin Aldeguer (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP), who had a highside that left no escape even for Joan Mir (Honda HRC Castrol), who was involved in the episode and KO.
