Jorge Martin wins a stunner against Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia
A complete contrast to Saturday’s sprint, Francesco Bagnaia made a brilliant start as he led into turn one.
Bagnaia came under immediate attack from Martin on the ap‐ proach to turn two, but the cham‐ pionship leader went too deep under braking and Bagnaia re‐ gained top spot.
Further back, Marc Marquez made another stunning start as he gained five place on the open‐ ing lap. In the battle fo to pres‐ sure Maverick Vinales for fifth spot, the same was true for Mar‐ tin as he and Aleix Espargaro closed in on Bagnaia.
Squabbling between Espargaro and Di Giannantonio saw them lose touch with Bagnaia and Mar‐ tin on lap seven, which was the case further back as Vinales was holding up Marquez and Bastian‐ ini.
Mistakes from Bagnaia and Mar‐ tin at turn five on lap nine saw the chasing pack gain time, although it was a very small margin gained.
On lap ten Di Giannantonio fi‐ nally got through on Espargaro for third, before Vinales and Marc Marquez did the same one lap later.
Espargaro’s day then got even worse as he ran off circuit after a near‐miss with Bastianini at turn ten. Fabio Quartararo gained a position as a result before Bas‐ tianini was given a Long Lap penalty for his overtake as he also ran off the track.
Vinales then lost P4 to Marquez on lap 14 after running wide at turn eight. Very small contact was made between the pair.
Marquez then began his assault on P3 as he went in search of a move on Di Giannantonio at turn two.
Marquez went hard on the brakes but Di Giannantonio was in no mood to give up the position as they nearly collided.
One lap later and Marquez was through as Di Giannantonio was wild in his defence which led to him running wide and giving P4 to Vinales.
Lap 20 soon arrived as Martin’s charge to take the lead began, however, Bagnaia produced a brilliant cutback in order to halt the Spaniard’s charge at turn two.
On lap 21 Martin was through as he delivered the same overtake at turn two but did not run wide.
What did happen as a result was Marquez catching the lead duo as he began lining up Bagnaia, who was not giving up on the win.
With one lap to go the top three closed to within three tenths as Marquez produced a stunner at turn ten to demote Bagnaia to P3.
But Martin was given just enough of a gap as a result to keep hold of the lead as he came across the line for a brilliant double at Le Mans.
Francesco Bagnaia on why he lost French MotoGP win: “They were just faster”
Francesco Bagnaia saw his title defence take another small hit as he lost out on victory at the French MotoGP.
Bagnaia led most of the race be‐ fore losing the lead to Jorge Mar‐ tin on lap 21 of 27.
A lap earlier, Bagnaia produced another masterclass in defence as he allowed Martin to go into turn two ahead, knowing the Pramac rider would go wide before com‐ pleting a cutback.
But Martin made no such error in his second attempt at the same corner, which was the last change of lead.
Bagnaia stayed close to Martin, however, instead of going for‐ ward Bagnaia then lost the sec‐ ond to Marquez on the final lap.
“I was trying to do the maxi‐ mum but we must consider the weekend in a positive way,” said Bagnaia post‐race.
“Friday went in a perfect way and then there was a little issue in the sprint which didn’t allow us to finish the race.
“Today, these two were just faster. I tried to do the maximum but in hte last few laps I struggled to have something more which was the opposite to Jerez.
“But in any case we improved a bit in this track. Last year I crashed and two years ago I crashed, so it was important to finish the race and we did it in a fast way.
“Happy about it but with a third position I can never really be sat‐ isfied. Let's move on to Barcelona and try to improve a bit.”
Once Martin overtook Bagnaia it looked as though the champi‐ onship leader was going to pull away.