Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez beat factory Aprilia rider Jorge Martin in a straight fight to score his maiden sprint victory in the Italian Grand Prix.
Still fighting to secure his future in MotoGP, Fernandez grabbed the lead on the opening lap and fended off a late attack from Martin to take the top spot in the Saturday race at Mugello.
The result occurred less than a fortnight after the two riders collided in the Catalan Grand Prix, leading to a tense environment within the Aprilia camp.
Behind the two RS-GPs, Fabio di Giannantonio completed the podium positions, cementing his status as Ducati’s best-performing rider.
At the start of the race, reigning champion Marquez made a brilliant launch from fourth on the grid to grab the holeshot into Turn 1, as polesitter Bezzecchi dropped down the order.
But Marquez couldn’t pull away at the front, with Fernandez making a decisive move at Turn 3 to take the lead. Fellow front-row starter Martin also made the most of the situation to barge past the Ducati rider, who slipped behind LCR’s Diogo Moreira and di Giannantonio by the end of the opening lap.
This set up a two-horse fight between Fernandez and Martin at the front, with the duo quickly pulling away from the remainder of the field, now led by di Giannantonio.
Martin managed to follow the satellite Aprilia in the opening phase, but Fernandez was able to build a buffer in the middle stages, stretching his advantage to almost a second by lap 7.
The 2024 champion started coming back at him as the race neared its conclusion, bringing the gap down to four tenths at one stage, but Fernandez’s supreme pace in the second sector on the medium rear tyre allowed him to hold firm.
The Spaniard went on to take his first win in a sprint, less than six months after his maiden grand prix success in Australia last year.
Martin eventually finished 1.2s down behind Fernandez in second, bagging a decent haul of points in his fight with Bezzecchi for the championship.
Jorge Martin, Aprilia Racing Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
Meanwhile, di Giannantonio bounced back from his worst qualifying finish of the year to put Ducati on the podium, with Bezzecchi also recovering from a poor opening lap to finish fourth.
Marquez secured a solid fifth position on his return to MotoGP, leading the Gresini Ducati of Fermin Aldeguer.
Two-time MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia endured a horrific start that dropped him outside the top 10, but he gradually worked his way up the order, passing KTM’s Pedro Acosta on the final lap to finish seventh.
Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura also cleared Acosta on the last tour to finish eighth, but the latter still ended up as the top KTM rider after Tech3’s Enea Bastianini crashed out at Turn 10 on lap 5.
LCR rookie Moreira suffered a significant drop in performance after his early race heroics, just missing out on points in 10th place.
Alex Rins was the top Yamaha rider in 12th, behind the factory KTM of Brad Binder.
Joan Mir (Honda) and Franco Morbidelli (VR46) joined Bastianini in the list of retirees.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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