Consolidating a season finale to remember, Francesco Bagnaia has added his third victory in the MotoGP World Championship by winning the Algarve Grand Prix, the second race of the season in Portimao and the penultimate in 2021. After his second place in the Portuguese first round in spring, and the abandonment at Misano that knocked him out for the title , the Italian Ducati rider has made up for himself with an authoritarian victory from pole position. All this, despite the best efforts of a Joan Mir who got his sixth drawer of the year, and on a date where Fabio Quartararo did not see the checkered flag in his first career as a world champion.
Bagnaia retained its privileged position from his fifth consecutive pole position, with Jack Miller in his slipstream and Jorge Martín surpassing Mir for third place. The Suzuki rider, who started in the front row for the first time since his Moto3 days, soon gave an account of the Ducati to take second and try to closely follow Bagnaia’s wake. From behind, without his brother on stage, Álex Márquez grew from his seventh position on the grid to get to place fourth in the first bars of the race, on Martín and a Fabio Quartararo without any pressure. In reverse, a Pol Espagaró that went from fourth to ninth.
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With the exception of a Danilo Petrucci who faces his last days as a MotoGP rider, no one kissed the asphalt in a calm first third of the race, with Mir closely marking Bagnaia’s great pace. Tenth by tenth, the Italian Ducati was establishing his leadership, eventually obtaining a margin of more than two seconds. Far from being attacked by Miller, Álex Márquez went on the offensive and passed Miller for the podium position with 15 laps to go. A scare cost Quartararo sixth position to the benefit of Johann Zarco, while Iker Lecuona saved an accident in a great braking pass at Turn 1 that took him out of the top 10.
The good work of Álex Márquez To contain the top speed of the Ducati it was tested with a Miller attack on the main straight seven laps from the end that the LCR Honda rider skillfully endured, but gave up definitively two laps later after an error in the second sector. After another exchange of places with the world champion, Zarco passed his teammate Jorge Martín for fifth place with five laps to complete, and it was at that moment that Quartararo went to the ground, this being his only abandonment of 2021.
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As the podium fight started to heat up for an intense finish between Miller and Márquez, the race ended two laps early with a red flag, after an accident between Iker Lecuona and Miguel Oliveira in which the Spanish collided with the Portuguese. Although both pilots remained conscious, Oliveira was taken out of the escape on a stretcher and was treated for several minutes in the roads before being transferred to the medical center. With the consequent interruption of the event, the results of lap 23 would be final.
With your victory, Bagnaia secured the 2021 runner-up, and his points allowed Ducati to mathematically clinch the brand championship. In turn, Joan Mir also established his third place after a consistent defense of his world championship. Miller returned to the podium 10 races later with a third place and secured the title of best independent driver, to the detriment of a Márquez who signed his first top-5 of the year, also equaling the best result in LCR.
Zarco repeated Misano’s fifth place and Pol Espagaró snatched sixth place a few laps from the end to a Martín who is close to three points behind Enea Bastianini in the fight for rookie of the year. Álex Rins finished in eighth position and Maverick Viñales he finished out of the points on his Aprilia, overtaken by Stefan Bradl on Marc Márquez’s usual bike. With practically nothing at stake in the queen class, the season will close next week in Cheste with the Grand Prix of the Valencian Community, where Pedro Acosta will be the protagonist as the recently proclaimed Moto3 champion.