SILVERSTONE: Span­iard Alex Marquez beat late-charging Marco Bezze­c­chi to become the fifth different sprint winner in nine rounds of the MotoGP season with victory in the 10 lap race at Silverstone on Saturday.

The Gresini Racing Ducati rider, who started on the front row in third place, beat VR46 Ducati’s pole-sitter Bezzecchi by 0.366 seconds with Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales third.

The younger brother of six times MotoGP champion Marc, who finished 18th for the struggling Repsol Honda team, Marquez took the lead from KTM’s Australian Jack Miller on the second lap on a drying track after heavy rain.

He had the race under control until the last lap, when he made a mistake and engaged second gear instead of third at Copse with the bike moving around and losing time.

“For the rest everything was under control, I was pushing quite well, I was feeling really good with the bike,” said the Spaniard of his first win of any sort in the top category.

“It’s the best way to start the second part of the season.” Alex Marquez was one of several fallers in qualifying, with some riders questioning whether the sprint should go ahead on safety grounds before conditions improved.

Championship leader Francesco Bagnaia finished 14th and failed to score for the factory Ducati team, after losing five places at the start, in a race with six Italian bikes filling the top six places.

Bezzecchi returned to second place in the championship, closing Bag­naia’s lead to 27 points ahead of Sunday’s main grand prix while Spaniard Jorge Martin dropped to third overall after finishing sixth for Pramac Ducati.

“I didn’t expect such difficult conditions in the race,” said Bezzecchi, who had a big crash in qualifying after securing pole and came back at Marquez in the closing stages.

“I expected all wet or all dry but it was very mixed and I couldn’t put the slick (tyre).

“I said to myself that I had to manage the tyre but as soon as I started to push to try to recover Alex my tyre was anyway done,” he added.

Third place was a first sprint podium for Vinales. Points are awarded to the top nine under the format introduced this season.

Published in Dawn, Aug 6th, 2023