Alex Rins scored an emotional victory in Valencia as Suzuki waves goodbye to the MotoGP paddock, while Francesco Bagnaia wrapped up the MotoGP championship with a quiet run to ninth.
Rins made a lightning start from fifth on the grid to lead the field exiting Turn 1, the Suzuki man immediately falling into a solid rhythm ahead of pole-man Jorge Martin.
The Spaniard was never headed beyond this point as he continued to hold a consistent gap of just under a second over the Pramac rider until the very end, when KTM rider Brad Binder moved clear of the Ducati to try and pull off a last-gasp first success of the year.
The South African ultimately came up 0.396s short as Rins took the chequered flag for his second win of the year, a victory that will be Suzuki’s last for the foreseeable future as it leaves the championship ahead of the 2023 term.
Martin held onto the final spot on the rostrum in third ahead of Fabio Quartararo, the Frenchman unable to achieve the victory he needed to have any chance at stealing away the title from Bagnaia’s grasp, though this point was moot either way with Bagnaia bagging ninth having only needed to finish 14th to wrap up the crown.
Miguel Oliveira carved through the field in his final race with KTM to take fifth ahead of the sister Suzuki of Joan Mir, with the VR46 Ducati of Luca Marini managing seventh.
Gresini’s Enea Bastianini passed 2023 team-mate Bagnaia for eighth in the closing laps, a result good enough to steal third in the rider’s standings away from a desperately unlucky Aleix Espargaro who was forced to retire in the pits early on with a suspected mechanical problem.
Franco Morbidelli completed the top ten on the other factory Yamaha just behind his title-winning countryman, while Raul Fernandez came out on top of the Tech3 KTM battle in his last race with the squad in 12th just ahead of team-mate Remy Gardner, who will exit the MotoGP paddock en-route to a career in the World Superbike series.
Jack Miller’s final outing with Ducati ended in the gravel at Turn 11 with just a few laps to go while running fourth, while Marc Marquez also crashed while battling at the front, the Honda man going down at Turn 8 just prior to mid-distance.
Johann Zarco crashed the other Pramac Ducati while running outside the top ten, while Maverick Vinales also failed to make the finish to cap off a dreadful day for the Aprilia outfit.
Darryn Binder failed to finish his last MotoGP race after crashing his RNF Yamaha early on, as did team-mate Cal Crutchlow – though he at least re-mounted to take the chequered flag 16th.
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