Francesco Bagnaia secured a second consecutive MotoGP title in classy style with victory in an attrition-filled Valencia Grand Prix, while Jorge Martin crashed out while battling with Marc Marquez.
Bagnaia held the lead from pole position, which he inherited as a result of Maverick Vinales receiving a three-place grid drop for ignoring a mechanical warning flag during warm-up, off the start and immediately tried to open a gap to title rival Martin, who jumped from sixth to second off the start.
Desperate to try and control proceedings from the front, Martin pushed Bagnaia hard but made a key mistake on entry to Turn 1. The Spaniard missed his braking point in Bagnaia’s slipstream and ran wide, clipping the leading Ducati and dropping back to eighth as a result.
Bagnaia then came under attack from KTM duo Brad Binder and Jack Miller, the Italian left with no choice but to let them go as he looked to keep hold of his points advantage over Martin.
The war was ultimately won after just half a dozen laps, as a recovering Martin pulled an overly aggressive move on Honda’s Marc Marquez trying to return to the front. He missed the apex at Turn 4 and clipped Marquez, causing the six-time champion to violently high-side as Martin ran off into the gravel. This caused him to crash and subsequently retire, handing Bagnaia the title there and then.
A path to a seventh victory for Bagnaia would ultimately open up in front of him as the race entered its climactic phase though, as Binder ran wide at Turn 10 and dropped to sixth, allowing the factory Ducati man into second.
He then claimed the lead after Miller crashed out at the same bend a handful of laps later, leaving Bagnaia to fend off the sole remaining Pramac Ducati of Johann Zarco.
The Frenchman was unable to do anything about the leader however, and instead fell victim to a charging Fabio Di Gianantonio, who could sense a second premier-class win in the offing.
The Gresini rider pushed Bagnaia hard over the final lap, though the champion’s class was on display for all to see as he expertly kept himself up front to crown his second successive premier class title with a seventh win of the year.
Di Gianantonio thus had to make do with the runners-up result, though his third rostrum result in the last five races has more than likely secured him a passage to remaining on the MotoGP grid in 2024.
Zarco came home third to secure a podium in his final race running a Ducati before moving off to his new adventure with LCR Honda next term.
Binder started to run out of tyre in the closing laps and had to make do with fourth on the day, the South African lucky not to receive a stiffer penalty for barging Alex Marquez out the way trying to make amends for his earlier mistake.
He forced the Gresini man out wide at Turn 4, costing him an additional place to Di Gianantonio. Binder received a drop one-place sanction for the incident, though simply overtook Aprilia’s Vinales ahead of him and dropped back, thus reducing the severity of the punishment.
Raul Fernandez claimed a brilliant fifth for RNF Aprilia, the Spaniard moving clear of Alex Marquez in the latter stages.
Franco Morbidelli finished off his Yamaha tenure with a solid run to seventh ahead of Aleix Espargaro and VR46 Ducati’s Luca Marini, while Vinales’ gamble to opt for the soft rear tyre failed badly as he slumped to tenth by the flag.
Fabio Quartararo could manage only 11th as he struggled with a nasty fever, the Yamaha man doing well to simply reach the chequered flag.
Only 14 of the 21 riders reached the end thanks to the cooler track conditions making it tricky to not over-ride, with LCR Honda’s Alex Rins and GasGas’ Augusto Fernandez falling victim to the Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Enea Bastianini also went down during the afternoon, while Marco Bezzecchi crashed his VR46-run Ducati on the opening lap.
Keyword: Bagnaia seals second MotoGP title with emphatic Valencia win as Martin crashes