Pecco Bagnaia seems truly unstoppable. Since the long race in Barcelona, the reigning world champion’s track record has been perfect, with two victories in the long races, but above all as many in the Sprints, which until the Catalan Grand Prix had been his Achilles’ heel and the strong point of his rival Jorge Martin.
But in Assen he demonstrated that Saturday’s success at Mugello was anything but a coincidence, because the Ducati rider dominated again, starting very well from pole position and then setting an infernal pace on the high 1’31” pace, which only the Prima Pramac Racing standard-bearer tried to hold on for a few laps, surrendering at a distance to the superiority of the Piedmontese, who took the checkered flag with a margin of over two seconds.
An important success also in terms of the World Championship, because Pecco has thus reduced the gap to 15 points with respect to “Martinator”, with the regret of having thrown away the Sprint of Barcelona on the very last lap: without that mistake, the comeback would have been practically a done deal. However, both have managed to dig a gap with respect to all the pursuers, because Marc Marquez’s Sprint lasted little more than a lap: on the second lap, the Gresini Racing rider cut too much on the inside kerb at turn 2 and slipped, thus falling to -44 in the race for the title.
Completing the podium is the Aprilia of Maverick Vinales, with the Spaniard who, however, was only able to act as a spectator to the escape of the two Ducati riders, finding himself doing a solitary second half of the race, given that he in turn had distanced himself all the chasers after getting rid of Alex Marquez who had been very aggressive in the early stages.
Chasers who in the end closed led by Enea Bastianini who must curse the terrible qualifying he did this morning. The Ducati rider was in fact able to climb from 11th place on the grid to the final fourth, also giving away a couple of really valuable overtakings. Starting further up, he probably could have also aspired to the podium, only a couple of seconds away, but who knows, maybe he can think about it tomorrow with a longer race.
On the other hand, Fabio Di Giannantonio seemed to have ruined a good qualifying with a terrible start, finding himself 11th at the end of the first lap. The Pertamina Enduro VR46 driver, however, did not give up and climbed up to fifth position, with the gem of a beautiful double overtaking at the chicane on the penultimate lap against Brad Binder and Alex Marquez.
Up to a few hundred meters from the finish line, in the tail of “Diggia” there was the other Aprilia of Aleix Espargaro, but the rider from Granollers was the victim of a bad fall at turn 15 in the final stages, although fortunately he seems to have escaped without too serious consequences. The aforementioned Binder, first of the KTMs, and Fabio Quartararo took advantage of this, eventually seventh with his Yamaha, thanks also to a 3″ penalty inflicted on Alex Marquez for too many violations of the track limits (it was a long lap penalty, but he didn’t have time to serve it). A shame for the standard-bearer of Gresini Racing, also third in the early stages, but in the end only eighth.
The last point was taken home by Franco Morbidelli with the second Ducati of Prima Pramac Racing, with rookie Pedro Acosta, never in difficulty so far as this weekend, who instead had to settle for tenth place, ahead of a Marco Bezzecchi who was definitely in difficulty this weekend. As for the Italians, Lorenzo Savadori and Luca Marini were forced to retire: a fall stopped the Aprilia test rider, a technical problem instead stopped the Honda rider, who placed Joan Mir 14th as the best RC213V.
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