Jorge Martin eased to a first MotoGP victory in the Styrian Grand Prix as he held off reigning world champion Joan Mir at the Red Bull Ring.
Martin-who also scored his Pramac team’s first ever win in the process-held firm off the start of the race to hold the lead, though he would soon come under attack.
Francesco Bagnaia had managed to take the lead away from Jorge Martin in the opening tours before the red flags were shown on the third lap of the original start after Dani Pedrosa crashed his KTM at Turn 3, with Lorenzo Savadori collecting the RC16 as a result.
Pedrosa’s machine then burst into flames and left oil and fuel across the entirety of the track, forcing track personnel and officials to spend half-an-hour cleaning up the track surface before the race was re-started with the original qualifying positions, Pedrosa lining up for the restart on his spare bike while Savadori had to miss the now 27-lap race as a precaution.
Martin managed to get away at the front once the contest got back underway, though this time with the other factory Ducati of Jack Miller pressuring him, the Aussie moving ahead to take the lead on the opening tour.
He soon had regained the leadership though with Suzuki’s Mir also following through to take second, a battle between Miller and series leader Fabio Quartararo affording them a comfortable margin out in front.
Mir mounted pressure onto the rookie all the way through and at one point looked likely to attack as he remained firmly within the wheeltracks of the Ducati, though the ’18 Moto3 world champion started to gain the upper hand as the laps ticked down.
Martin started to edge away with half-a-dozen laps remaining, his cause aided by a couple of small errors from the hard-charging Mir that allowed him to open up a 1.5 second lead as he started the final tour, though a track limits warning meant he couldn’t relax.
He remained strong though and screamed across the line 1.548 seconds clear of Mir to secure his debut premier class win in only his sixth start, with Pramac securing its first success after nearly two decades of competition.
Quartararo ended up a lonely third after chief rostrum rival Miller crashed out while trying to find a way past the Yamaha pilot, the Frenchman nearly ten seconds behind the victorious Martin.
The battle for fourth meanwhile went down to the final circulation as a fading Johann Zarco fell back towards LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami, KTM’s Brad Binder and the other Suzuki of Alex Rins.
Binder put the cherry on top of one of his customary Sunday charges to pass both Nakagami and Zarco to grab fourth from 15th on the grid, with Nakagami also taking advantage of a struggling Zarco to complete the top five ahead of the second Pramac man.
Rins ended up seventh ahead of Marc Marquez, who recovered from a run-off at Turn 1 early in the contest to head home brother Alex on the second LCR Honda.
Pedrosa meanwhile staged a strong recovery from a poor start to complete the top ten in his first race in almost three years after Francesco Bagnaia dropped from ninth to 11th thanks to a three-second penalty for a track limits infringement on the final lap.
Aprilia’s day failed to improve as it lost its only remaining representative in Alex Espargaro early in the restarted race due to a mechanical problem, with KTM’s Miguel Oliviera also seemingly suffering the same fate while running just within the top ten at mid-distance.
Valentino Rossi struggled to make progress from towards the back as he ended up only 13th, with Petronas SRT team-mate Cal Crutchlow taking 17th ahead of Danilo Petrucci and Maverick Vinales, who stalled prior to the start and had to begin the encounter from the back before then getting a long-lap for multiple track limits warnings.
pielberg, Sunday, August 08, 2021
| # | Rider | Team | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jorge Martin | Pramac Racing | 38’07.879 |
| 2 | Joan Mir | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | +1.548 |
| 3 | Fabio Quartararo | Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP | +9.632 |
| 4 | Brad Binder | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | +12.771 |
| 5 | Takaaki Nakagami | LCR Honda IDEMITSU | +12.923 |
| 6 | Johann Zarco | Pramac Racing | +13.031 |
| 7 | Alex Rins | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | +14.839 |
| 8 | Marc Marquez | Repsol Honda Team | +17.953 |
| 9 | Alex Marquez | LCR Honda CASTROL | +19.059 |
| 10 | Dani Pedrosa | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | +19.389 |
| 11 | Francesco Bagnaia | Ducati Lenovo Team | +21.667 |
| 12 | Enea Bastianni | Avintia Esponsorama | +25.267 |
| 13 | Valentino Rossi | Petronas Yamaha SRT | +26.282 |
| 14 | Luca Marini | SKY VR46 Avintia | +27.492 |
| 15 | Iker Lecunoa | Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing | +31.076 |
| 16 | Pol Espargaro | Repsol Honda Team | +31.150 |
| 17 | Cal Crutchlow | Petronas Yamaha SRT | +40.408 |
| 18 | Danilo Petrucci | Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing | +48.114 |
| 19 | Maverick Vinales | Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP | +1’03.149 |
| 20 | Jack Miller | Ducati Lenovo Team | 9 Laps |
| 21 | Miguel Oliverira | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | 13 Laps |
| 22 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | 23 Laps |
