Quartararo increases championship lead with dominant Assen MotoGP victory

Fabio Quartararo has increased his championship lead after taking a fourth MotoGP win of the 2021 season - first in the premier class at Assen. 

Quartararo made the perfect start once the lights went out as he led into turn one, however, Francesco Bagnaia who said his plan was to disrupt the Yamahas did just that at turn 9 as he took the lead. 

The next change for the lead came on lap five when Quartararo attempted a move at the final chicane. 

The Yamaha rider ran slightly wide though, which allowed Bagnaia to regain the lead, The championship leader only had to wait a few corners later to make the race winning overtake before immediately pulling a gap.

As Quartararo’s lead increased to over four seconds, Bagnaia was given a long-lap penalty whilst second, which relegated the Ducati man to ninth. 

This allowed pole sitter Maverick Vinales to move into second after the Spaniard got past Takaaki Nakagami a few corners prior. 

Vinales was fourth during the opening laps as he once again ran into the same issues of trying to overtake. 

When running second, Vinales was just as fast as team-mate Quartararo, however the damage was already done. Second place was still a great result given last weekend’s fiasco in Germany.

Joan Mir produced another champion’s ride as he came from tenth place to claim third. Mir was involved with Johann Zarco for the final spot on the rostrum. 

The Pramac Ducati rider took fourth ahead of Miguel Oliveira who had a quiet, but strong performance for KTM. 

Bagnaia recovered to finish sixth just ahead of a brilliant Marc Marquez who came from 20th to seventh. 

By the end of lap one Marquez was already up from 20th position to 11th, before making that tenth the following lap as he got ahead of team-mate Pol Espargaro.  

Marquez had a race long duel with Aleix Espargaro as the pair exchanged seventh in the final few laps. 

Behind Espargaro in eighth was Nakagami, while the second Repsol Honda of Espargaro rounded out the top ten. 

Valentino Rossi suffered an early crash at turn seven, while Iker Lecuona, Jack Miller and Jorge Martin also crashed. Alex Rins recovered from last to 11th after early contact with Zarco which put him at the back of the pack.