Ducati’s Marc Marquez led from start to finish at the Balaton Park Circuit to win his 13th sprint in 14 rounds this season for a commanding victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday to extend his championship lead to 152 points.
Marquez was joined on the podium by VR46 Racing riders Fabio Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli with Luca Marini finishing fourth to give Honda a rare boost with his best sprint result for the Japanese manufacturer.
Gresini Racing’s Alex Marquez, second in the championship, finished eighth while Marc’s teammate Francesco Bagnaia, third in the table, came a lowly 13th.
In an incident-packed opening lap, three riders crashed out in separate incidents, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo the biggest culprit when he was involved in a chaotic collision on turn one that nearly took out several riders.
“I heard somebody super close in the first corner, but from that point I just tried to take my rhythm. In the first lap already I was riding in a very good way and then I just tried to keep a constant pace,” Marquez said.
“I saw that was enough to open a gap. I’m happy, now we need to analyse everything to understand the rear tyre for (the race) tomorrow.”
LAP RECORD
Marquez, who had broken the lap record twice to claim his eighth pole of the season, had a superb launch off the line to lead into turn one but Quartararo failed to brake in time as his Yamaha torpedoed into traffic and out of the race.
Enea Bastianini had survived Quartararo’s rash lunge when they collided, and the Italian crashed later on lap one in an incident that also forced a fuming Johann Zarco to retire.
Marquez had Di Giannantonio and Morbidelli behind him while the Hondas of Marini and Joan Mir moved up to fourth and fifth, unfamiliar territory for the two riders who were 15th and 18th in the championship.
But Gresini Racing’s rookie Fermin Aldeguer had other ideas and he split the two factory Hondas to slot into fifth place.
Up front, Marquez received track limit warnings but he was cruising and he had a lead of over two seconds with four laps remaining, leaving the rest of the pack fighting for podium places.
It was Marquez’s seventh straight sprint win, and the Spaniard has been undefeated in sprints and races since the British Grand Prix in May.
A spot podium spot brought both joy and redemption for Morbidelli, who had missed two races due to injury after a crash at the German Grand Prix and he also crashed twice in Friday’s practice.
“I’m really happy because today we had a really solid Saturday. We got back the rhythm from the injury,” he said.
