Francesco Bagnaia led from lights out to the chequered flag to earn his first MotoGP Sprint victory of the season at Brno.
The Italian took his first victory in any format since the 2025 Malaysian Grand Prix Sprint, seeing off a late challenge from polesitter Ai Ogura.
Bagnaia got the launch from the middle of the front row and took the lead of the race into Turn 1.
Diogo Moreira also made a good start to get up to third behind Bagnaia and Ogura, but crashed out at the final corner, with Maverick Vinales following in his own crash seconds later.
Ogura settled into second place and took his time to get into the race, allowing Bagnaia a buffer of almost a second in the first half of the race.
However, in the second phase of the race, the three riders behind Bagnaia started to pile on the pressure, with Ogura closing the gap to under half a second.
Marc Marquez also took a while to get going but followed Ogura’s pace, while fourth-placed Fabio Di Giannantonio was the fastest rider on circuit with four laps remaining.
The four dropped Marco Bezzecchi who couldn’t run with the leaders, and the championship leader crashed out of the race on the penultimate lap to promote team-mate and title rival Jorge Martin into the top five.
Back at the front, Bagnaia managed the pace to perfection to cross the chequered flag and take the race victory by 0.241s.
Ogura tried to close in but was forced to settle for second place after starting on pole position, while Marquez completed the top three.
Di Giannantonio ran out of pace at the end and was fourth, while Martin played it safe to keep hold of the top five after Bezzecchi’s crash.
Raul Fernandez had a lonely race in sixth ahead of Enea Bastianini in seventh and Fermin Aldeguer in eighth.
Brad Binder picked up the final points position in ninth, with Joan Mir just missing out inside the top 10.
Toprak Razgatlioglu was 11th ahead of a close battle between Franco Morbidelli and the rest of the Yamaha riders, with the Italian edging into 12th.
Fabio Quartararo led factory team-mate Alex Rins over the line in 13th and 14th respectively, while Jack Miller rounded out the finishers.
Cal Crutchlow crashed out on the last lap and was unclassified, joining Bezzecchi, Luca Marini and Pedro Acosta as late crashers, while Vinales and Moreira completed the non-finishers.
Alex Marquez withdrew ahead of the Sprint and will take no further action in the weekend’s action.
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