Beat Jorge Martin, Aleix Espargaro Win First MotoGP Victory In Argentina

JAKARTA - Aleix Espargaro won his first MotoGP win for the Aprilia team after defeating Jorge Martin of the Pramac Racing team at the Argentine Grand Prix on Sunday.

In the 25-lap race, Espargaro secured the first victory of his racing career in all world championship classes after defeating Martin by overtaking in the last five laps.

Reporting from Antara, Alex Rins finished on the podium for the first time this season for the Suzuki team after finishing third. Meanwhile, Joan Mir finished one position behind his teammate.

MotoGP returns to Argentina after two Grand Prix in the South American country were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this year's race was hampered by logistical problems which caused the cargo plane to arrive late and all Friday practice sessions to be canceled.

The Termas de Rio Hondo circuit also saw for the first time in MotoGP history two Aprilia bikes start from the top five as Espargaro took the Italian team's first pole position and Maverick Vinales in the second row.

However, Martin shot well at the start to steal the lead of the race towards the first corner.

Espargaro kept his pace in order to stick tightly to the Pramac Ducati team rider. Both riders started to leave their rivals two seconds ahead after seven laps.

Martin, who failed to finish in the opening two races of the season, got some breathing room after the Aprila driver went wide at corner one.

However, after making this mistake, Espargaro still kept his pace and scored the best lap to catch the leading rider.

After two attempts to overtake Martin and go wide, Espargaro pulled off the perfect maneuver to take the lead from his compatriot in the last five laps and be the first to cross the finish, celebrating his first win since the 200th Grand Prix start of his career.

Martin had to settle for finishing runner-up 0.807 seconds later.

The factory Ducati team got positive results after Francesco Bagnaia finished in the top five despite being knocked out of Q1.

However, Jack Miller was actually unhappy after receiving a penalty, retreating three grids to P14 because he was considered to have blocked Fabio Quartararo's pace during the second qualifying round.

Marco Bezzecchi became the best rookie after finishing P9 for team Mooney VR46.

While chasing Alex Rins for a podium spot, Pol Espargaro crashed at Turn 2 with ten laps remaining. It was a tough weekend for the Repsol Honda team who also had to lose Marc Marquez who was forced to miss Argentina due to diplopia after the accident in Mandalika.

Yamaha also failed to shine at Termas as reigning world champion Fabio Quartararo could only finish P8 behind KTM's Brad Binder and Vinales.

With that result, Aleix Espargaro came out as the leader of the standings with a collection of 45 points after three races. Binder stayed in second place with 38 points while Bastianini slipped from the top to third with 36 points after finishing P10 for the Gresini team.

The riders will continue their fight in the Americas when MotoGP visits the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, USA, next week.