Fabio Quartararo claims championship lead with Portimao victory

Fabio Quartararo has taken over as the new championship leader following his second consecutive win of the 2021 MotoGP season at Portimao. 

After an intense few laps which saw Alex Rins give everything to challenge the Yamaha rider, Quartararo ultimately claimed a comfortable victory at the Algarve Circuit ahead of Francesco Bagnaia and Joan Mir. 

Although Quartararo started from pole, the 21 year-old initially had to fight his way back from sixth place at the end of lap one following a poor start. 

But after three laps, Quartararo was already back inside the podium places and applied pressure on Alex Rins and Zarco. 

Zarco said after qualifying that if Quartararo was ahead of him that he thought he could go with his countryman at the front, but once Quartararo made his way through and into the lead, only Rins could follow the Yamaha. 

The pair started to slowly gap Zarco who was involved in a tussle for third with Joan Mir, who made an impressive start from ninth up to fourth by turn four. 

Once Quartararo and Rins increased the gap out front, the pace was becoming more and more relentless, with 1m 39.4s laps being churned out - much faster than anticipated following FP4. 

But as a showdown for the lead looked to be on the cards heading into the final five laps, Rins lost the front at turn four, giving Quartararo a comfortable win. 

Bagnaia came home second for Ducati who saw both Jack Miller and Johann Zarco crash out. Following a lengthy battle with Mir for much of the race, Zarco crashed out at turn 10 whilst third behind Bagnaia who had just taken second from the Pramac rider. 

Mir tried his best on the final lap to challenge Bagnaia, but had to settle for third with Franco Morbidelli just behind in fourth. 

One of the surprises of the race was KTM rider Brad Binder who came across the line with an impressive fifth place.

Binder made a good start from ninth and spent much of the race on the outskirts of the top five, but due to crashes in front of him, the South African profited for his best finish of the year. 

Sixth was Aleix Espargaro for Aprilia as he matched his best result from the opening Qatar race. 

Seventh was Marc Marquez who produced a brilliant ride on his MotoGP return. The eight-time world champion made a good start from sixth and was as high as third place on the opening lap. 

With the fitness of Marquez a big question mark heading into the 25 lap race, the Spanish rider seemed to cope well as he held onto the front group for much of the race.

It was only in the final few laps did he lose ground on Espargaro ahead of him, however, Marquez had a commanding gap back to his brother Alex Marquez. 

The LCR Honda man finished nearly five second down on the Repsol Honda rider, while Enea Bastianini and Takaaki Nakagami rounded out the top ten. 

Last of the Honda’s was Pol Espargaro who only completed five laps before coming down pit lane to retire from the race.