Assen MotoGP: Bagnaia storms to win, Quartararo crashes twice

Coming into the Assen weekend 91 points behind Quartararo after two-successive DNFs, Bagnaia’s title hopes were boosted by an early crash for Quartararo that also forced Aleix Espargaro off track.

Taking Ducati’s first Assen win since 2008, Bagnaia’s lights-to-flag victory from pole puts him 66 points behind Quartararo going into the summer break.

Poleman Bagnaia got the jump on the field off the line to take the holeshot into Turn 1 as Quartararo ran wide, allowing Espargaro and Jorge Martin through.

Quartararo recovered third from Martin immediately at Turn 3 and scythed through on Espargaro into Turn 5.

But Espargaro retaliated into the fast Turn 6 right-hander to take second back from the championship leader as Bagnaia’s lead stretched to close to a second over the first tour.

Quartararo shadowed Espargaro for the next three laps before launching his raid on the Aprilia rider into Turn 5 on the fifth tour.

But the Yamaha rider crashed as he attempted the overtake and clattered into Espargaro, forcing the Spaniard into the gravel.

Quartararo re-joined the race at the back of the pack on his damaged Yamaha and pulled into pitlane at the end of lap nine before returning to the circuit.

But his day would soon go from bad to worse as he suffered a nasty highside exiting Turn 5 on lap 13, marking his first race retirement since Valencia 2020.

Aleix Espargaro, Aprilia Racing Team, Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing crash

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

The Quartararo/Espargaro incident will be investigated after the race, while it allowed Bagnaia to move 1.4s clear of VR46 Ducati rookie Marco Bezzecchi, who elected to run the soft rear tyre instead of the hard that Bagnaia selected.

Bagnaia’s lead would