Austrian MotoGP: Bagnaia wins Sprint after Martin penalty, Marquez crash

A victory for Francesco Bagnaia in the Austrian MotoGP Sprint came after drama behind him.

Bagnaia made a better start than Jorge Martin, and took the lead into turn one. A lunge from Martin at turn three saw him reclaim the lead from Bagnaia, but the Italian took it back again at turn one on lap two. Martin then ran wide at the turn 2a-2b chicane and rejoined from the cut-through in second place.

From there, he and Bagnaia pulled away from Marc Marquez to the tune of around 1.5 seconds, but then Martin was given a long-lap penalty for not losing enough time when he cut the chicane on lap two, and he lost four seconds when he served it.

Martin rejoined from his long-lap penalty in third, just ahead of Aleix Espargaro, but out of contention for the win.

That was now played between Bagnaia and Marquez, and initially the Spanish rider appeared to be able to close in on Bagnaia. He was around 0.3 seconds faster on lap nine, but on lap 10 he crashed out at turn three. He remounted way down the order but just rode his bike back to the pits.

Bagnaia was now 4.5 seconds in front of Martin, and gap that reduced slightly by the finish as the Italian tried to make sure he didn't repeat his Barcelona Sprint mistake from a couple of months ago.

The Ducati rider's win was his third Sprint success of the season after his Italian and Dutch Sprint wins, and it saw him reclaim the lead in the championship: he's now level on points with Martin, but his six GP victories beat Martin's two.

Second place was secured by Martin, who pulled away from Espargaro when he rejoined in front of him. Espargaro took third after Marquez' crash, an unlikely result for the Aprilia rider after finishing FP1 bottom of the times following two crashes.

Enea Bastianini came out on top in what turned into quite an intense battle for fourth. He'd dropped to ninth at the start when he ran wide at the chicane, but rode well from there to recover, although he ended up almost 10 seconds off the win. 

Jack Miller took fifth after a bad launch for the Australian. He led the fourth place battle for much of the race, and it also involved Franco Morbidelli, who ended up sixth, and Brad Binder who finished seventh in the end.

Marco Bezzecchi was eighth, ahead of Pol Espargaro on the KTM test bike, and Pedro Acosta who completed the top 10.

As well as Marquez, Stefan Bradl, Alex Rins, and Augusto Fernandez also retired. Alex Marquez was another crasher, at the chicane on lap one, but he got back on and finished 20th.