MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia dominated the Dutch Grand Prix sprint to narrow Jorge Martin’s points lead in the standings, as Marc Marquez crashed out.
Having topped both practice sessions on a Friday for the first time in his MotoGP career and taken pole with a lap record, Bagnaia led from start to finish in the 13-lap Assen sprint.
The factory Ducati rider seized the holeshot off the line and resisted the early attentions of Pramac counterpart Martin before streaking clear by over two seconds to the chequered flag.
This has allowed him to close down Martin’s championship lead to 15 points ahead of Sunday’s grand prix at Assen.
Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales completed the podium, while championship contender Marquez crashed out of the podium battle on lap two and is now 44 points adrift in the standings.
Bagnaia led Martin, Alex Marquez, Vinales and Marc Marquez off the line on the opening lap of 13 in the sprint.
A mistake for Martin at Turn 8 on the first lap gave Bagnaia crucial metres to preserve his lead through to the end of the tour.
Martin held onto second to start lap two, while Marc Marquez’s race ended at Turn 3 when he appeared to clip the inside kerb with his right knee and crashed out.
Into the final chicane at the end of lap two, Vinales launched his factory Aprilia up the inside of the remaining Gresini Ducati of Alex Marquez to snatch third and quickly pulled away.
By the start of lap five, Bagnaia was half a second clear of Martin and brought that gap up to over a second three tours later.
The Ducati rider continued to extend this advantage, though had some jeopardy to contend with when he was handed a warning for exceeding track limits too many times.
However, he would keep things clean through to the chequered flag to register back-to-back sprint wins in 2024.
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Martin ended up 2.355s behind Bagnaia on his Pramac-run Ducati, while Vinales was 1.7s adrift in third.
Enea Bastianini rallied from 11th on the grid to take fourth on the second factory team Ducati, while Fabio Di Giannantonio completed the top five for VR46 ahead of KTM’s Brad Binder.
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was promoted to seventh at the chequered flag after Alex Marquez was hit with a three-second time penalty for failing to serve a long lap for repeatedly exceeding track limits.
This dropped the Gresini rider one spot to eighth, while the final sprint race point went to Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli.
Pedro Acosta struggled to 10th on his Tech3 GasGas, while last year’s Assen sprint winner Marco Bezzecchi (VR46) could do no more than 11th.
Top Honda honours went to Joan Mir in 14th, 21.791s off the leader, while team-mate Luca Marini retired on lap five after his RC213V expired coming out of the last corner.
Aleix Espargaro crashed out on the last lap in a fast accident at Turn 15 while fighting for fifth, marking his second fall of the weekend after a nasty spill on Friday.
Aprilia wildcard Lorenzo Savadori also crashed out of the race.
