PHILLIP ISLAND (Australia) — Spain’s Raul Fernandez surged to a maiden MotoGP victory in Australia while Alex Marquez finished fourth to shore up his bid to finish the season second in the world championship.
On an overcast day at Phillip Island, the Aprilia rider benefited from two long lap penalties served by a flying Marco Bezzecchi to take the chequered flag 1.418sec clear of Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio.
Aprilia’s Bezzecchi, who won the 13-lap sprint, came third to fill out the podium, AFP reported.
KTM’s Pedro Acosta was fifth ahead of Luca Marini on a Honda and Yamaha’s Alex Rins, while Spanish rookie Fermin Aldeguer, who won the MotoGP in Indonesia a fortnight ago, finished 14th.
While Fernandez, in his 76th grand prix, stole the glory, Marquez all but sealed runner-up spot to his injured brother Marc in the world championship with three races to go.
The Spanish Gresini rider’s fourth earned him 13 points to be 97 clear of Bezzechhi with a maximum 111 at stake in the final three meetings of the 22-stop year – in Malaysia, Portugal and Spain.
Ducati’s two-time world champion Francesco Bagnaia crashed out with four laps left to cap a miserable weekend.
He struggled with unexplained shaking of his bike, a problem he also experienced in Indonesia after winning both the sprint and grand prix in Japan a week earlier.
With no points to show, he has slid behind Bezzecchi to fourth in the standings.
Marc Marquez was crowned world champion in Japan, but is not in Australia after Bezzecchi slammed into him in Indonesia, an incident that left the Spaniard needing shoulder surgery.
Bezzecchi was slapped with a double long lap penalty – essentially five-to-six seconds – to be served Sunday for causing the accident, and it cost him victory.
He stormed clear at the opening corner, and by the end of lap one was leading from Fernandez and Acosta, with polesitter Fabio Quartararo down to fourth.
The Italian opened a 1.2sec gap before taking his first long lap penalty on lap five, emerging in third.
He took the second penalty the following lap, coming back in sixth with a 2.8sec gap to leader Fernandez which slowly got bigger as Bezzecchi got stuck in traffic.
By lap 10, Fernandez was pulling clear of Acosta, a lead he built on as the race progressed with an expected counter-attack from Bezzecchi not materialising.
Home hope Jack Miller, who started from third, crashed out early in the race, as did Frenchman Johann Zarco and Honda’s Joan Mir.
Frenchman Fabio Quartararo said his pole position at the Australian Grand Prix was “really special” after the Yamaha rider shattered the lap record at Phillip Island, narrowly beating Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi to the top spot.
Quartararo clocked a stunning time of one minute and 26.465 seconds, edging Italian Bezzecchi by 0.031 seconds to claim his fifth pole position of the season.
The 26-year-old last earned pole at the Dutch Grand Prix in June. “Really nice. It was a long time since Assen!” Quartararo said.
