In our visit to Austria, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) made it a hat-trick of wins, with the Italian holding off Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy MotoGP™) by just 0.4s.
Gresini's Enea Bastianini started on pole for the first time in his premier class career, but it was Bagnaia who took the holeshot at the first corner, while his factory teammate Jack Miller slotted into P3. As tends to be the case, Bagnaia put the foot down and controlled the race out front, while Quartararo had to work his way into the podium places from sixth.
Disappointment struck for poleman Bastianini who was forced to retire and allowed the factory Ducatis to open up a gap, but 2021 World Champion Quartararo began to reel them in during the second half of the race, eventually catching Miller on Lap 25 with a sensational move at the newly installed chicane. The Frenchman couldn’t quite catch the race leader, with Bagnaia claiming a third win in a row by just 0.4s, with Miller rounding out the podium places as he profited from a last lap Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing) crash.
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MARK OF A CHAMPION: ANALYSING QUARTARARO'S MAGIC MILLER MOVE
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GRIDLOCKED: ALEIX ESPARGARO EXPLAINS LIGHTS OUT WOES
The Championship gap between Quartararo and Bagnaia was now just 44 points, with Aleix Espargaro still sitting in second place, but losing ground on the title leader while he had an in form Ducati breathing down his neck and a visit to Misano up next.