Bagnaia wins in Assen and Aleix Espargaró climbs to the third drawer of the podium
Pecco Bagnaia gave a new coup de effect in Assen. The current World Championship leader signed another perfect Grand Prix and repeated his triumph in the Netherlands. Something that had not happened for 18 years, when Valentino Rossi achieved it in 2004 and 2005. And he did it by beating Marco Bezzechi who did not have a good start, despite winning the sprint race and signing pole position on Saturday. All in all, the one who really had a bad day was Brad Binder who, after stepping on the green in the last lap defending himself from the harassment of Aleix Espargaró, was finally condemned to fourth place and allowed the Spaniard to climb to the third box of the podium. Jorge Martín, meanwhile, despite finishing fifth, still remains second overall, 35 points behind Bagnaia and only one ahead of Bezzecchi. Marc Márquez, for his part, was left without running. The aggravation of the injuries that he was carrying from Germany due to his last falls meant that the doctors did not finally give him the go-ahead to do so.
The third place of the eldest of the Espargaró brothers had a special merit: from the beginning of the race he had to tame a motorcycle conditioned in its aerodynamics by a touch with the rear tire of Luca Marini. “It moved a lot when going to the right and it was difficult to stay on the bike. For this reason, it has been difficult to be behind Brad, but in the end it has been worth it.. I dedicate it to my team, my wife and my children. This is for all of them,” said the Spaniard as soon as he finished the race.. For a long time, the South African and Bezzechi fought for a second place that, in the end, went to the Italian. As he explained, being patient was key: «When I was behind, I saw that Brad was going strong under braking and I had to wait a long time to overtake him.. And as soon as I did it, I saw that Pecco was already too far away».
«Winning here was not easy, because those who followed me were going very fast. I had to go a bit to the limit, but I love this circuit and these fans. Dear Assen, you are fantastic”, sentenced a completely exultant Bagnaia for his part after signing another great driving lesson. After moving to first on lap three, passing a Binder who sped off, no one could really threaten his pole position in a race with multiple crashes and a couple of DNFs.. Jack Miller, Fabio Quartararo, Johann Zarco, Maverick Viñales, Enea Bastianini and Fabio Di Giannantonio ended up hitting their bones on the ground, while Miguel Oliveira and Iker Lecuona had to go to the pits due to problems with their machines. As for the rest of the Spanish riders, Álex Márquez was sixth, Augusto Fernández finished in tenth position and Raúl Fernández was twelfth.
Now, after the well-known cancellation of the Kazakhstan Grand Prix due to problems with the homologation of the circuit, the World Championship will take a few days off, in which the pilots will be able to recover their strength and get to work with a view to a return to the competition that will not take place until the first weekend of next August. Silverstone, after this parenthesis, will be the stage where the motorcycles will once again roar loudly to compete for the British Grand Prix.