Quartararo Wins The GP Of Portugal, His Rivals Fall

Fabio Quartararo, Francesco Bagnaia and Joan Mir (Twitter @MotoGP)

JAKARTA - Monster Energy Yamaha racer Fabio Quartararo won his second successive victory this season by winning the Portuguese Grand Prix at the Algarve Circuit, Portimao, Sunday, when a number of rivals collided.

Francesco Bagnaia finished runner-up for the Ducati Lenovo team and Joan Mir completed the podium for Suzuki in third place, Antara reported on the official MotoGP page.

With Quartararo's win, Yamaha swept the top podium in three races this season, with the opening series at the Qatar Grand Prix won by Maverick Vinales, before Quartararo lifted his first trophy at the Doha GP.

The Portimao debuts on the MotoGP calendar in 2020 and is nicknamed the "rollercoaster" circuit due to its varying track elevations.

Not a smooth start for Quartararo. Despite starting the race from pole position, the French racer lost three positions towards the first corner, behind Johann Zarco, Alex Rins and Marc Marquez who poked from P6.

The racer nicknamed El Diablo was only able to regain the race leadership on lap 9, followed by Suzuki duo Alex Rins and defending world champion Joan Mir who stole six positions ahead.

Eleven laps remaining Zarco took advantage of the superior strength of the Ducati bike on the main straight track to overtake Mir.

Rins scored several times the fastest laps to catch Quartararo, but bad luck for the Spaniard, with seven laps remaining he fell and missed the podium opportunity.

Meanwhile, Mir did not move in front of the other Ducati bikes when Francesco Bagnaia easily passed him and overtook Zarco for P2.

Trying to catch up with Bagnaia, Zarco fell victim to the ferocity of the asphalt on the rollercoaster and fell with six laps remaining.

Quartararo had a healthy margin of approximately five seconds from his closest rivals in the last five rounds as Bagnaia, desperately defended Mir and Franco Morbidelli's attacks for the podium.

However, there was no drama in the final corner of the final lap. Quartararo smoothly headed for the finish line 4.809 seconds in front of Bagnaia who claimed P2 and Mir had the right to get on the podium in P3.

Morbidelli secured the points for the Petronas Yamaha team in P4, ahead of KTM rider Brad Binder.

Eight-time world champion Marc Marquez, who is back in competition after nine months of struggling with injury, nudged P3 but almost hit Mir's rear tire before losing his position to P9.

Marquez admits he will be tortured to undergo 25 laps of racing, not with his bones, but with his muscle strength, after 256 days of not riding a MotoGP bike.

With conditions that are not 100 percent, Marquez is quite satisfied with finishing P7, behind Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro, and in front of his younger brother, Alex Marquez who finished P8 for the LCR Honda team.

However, Marquez's teammate Pol Espargaro had to take the bike back to the garage due to technical problems.

Enea Bastianini became the best rookie in the third series race after finishing P9 ahead of Takaaki Nakagami who completed the top ten.

The Algarve circuit, with track temperatures quite high that day, proved quite difficult to tame when a number of big names crashed in the race.

Jack Miller failed to finish the race after falling on lap 6, one lap after last year's Portuguese GP champion Miguel Oliveira also slipped off the asphalt of the Portimao track.

Valentino Rossi was also a victim after kissing the gravel of Turn 11 on lap 16 while trying to fight for the top ten from starting position P17.

Pramac Racing team rookie Jorge Martin had to miss the race after falling hard during the third training session and will undergo surgery for the metacarpus on his right arm and medial malleoulus on his right ankle.

Quartararo now tops the standings with a collection of 61 points, overshadowed by Bagnaia who is 11 points adrift in second place and Vinales who is 20 points away in third.

A sight we may get used to in 2021! 😎Two out of three for @ FabioQ20! 🏆🏆 # PortugueseGP 🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/uCH4Yekjhq

- MotoGP ™ 🏁 (@MotoGP) April 18, 2021

The fourth series race will be held in two weeks at the Jerez-Angel Nieto Circuit, Spain in the next two weeks, where Quartararo won two races there last season.