Marc Marquez beats Pedro Acosta in Hungary MotoGP thriller, Aprilias collide
Marc Marquez scored his 100th career grand prix win in dramatic Hungarian Grand Prix
Marc Marquez scored a first MotoGP win of the season in a thrilling Hungarian Grand Prix, which started with a controversial collision between Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi.
The reigning world champion came into the Balaton Park weekend doubting he could repeat his victory success from one year ago in Hungary, as he continues to rebuild his strength from recent shoulder surgery.
But qualifying on pole, Marc Marquez dominated the sprint and prevailed in a thrilling battle with Pedro Acosta on a contra-tyre strategy.
He beat KTM’s Acosta by 1.3s to claim his first grand prix victory since last year’s San Marino event.
Drama unfolded at Turn 1 when Jorge Martin got out of shape under braking at the start and crashed, taking down Aprilia team-mate Marco Bezzecchi, Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer, Trackhouse Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez and VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio.
The incident keeps Bezzecchi 20 points in the lead of the championship over Martin, while Di Giannantonio is 42 adrift after remounting to finish 12th.
Marquez’s victory pulls him close to Bezzecchi, 72 points the gap now.
The factory Ducati rider grabbed the holeshot off the line despite getting wheelspin when he dropped the clutch.
He headed Acosta into Turn 1 ahead of Marquez’s Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia, as the chaos involving the Aprilias unfolded.
Acosta - who started on the soft tyre relative to Marquez on the medium - took the lead into Turn 5 on the second lap.
The KTM rider used the grip advantage on the soft to pull 0.6s clear of Marquez at the start of lap three, before pushing that to 1.6s at the start of the sixth tour.
But this was when Marquez began clawing into Acosta’s lead, as the pair traded fastest lap after fastest lap.
Marquez was just 0.4s behind at half-distance, before making his first attempt into Turn 9 on lap 14.
He got the move done, but Acosta carved back past him on the inside of Turn 11, before the pair touched at Turn 16 moments later.
Marquez made his second attempt into Turn 9 on lap 15 and ran the KTM rider wide enough to stop him from counterattacking.
The Ducati rider proceeded to put 0.7s between himself and Acosta, setting the fastest lap on the 20th of 26 tours and opening up a lead of over two seconds before easing off to the chequered flag.
Victory ends the Ducati factory team’s drought dating back to Japan last October, with Marquez now just 15 wins away from Valentino Rossi’s mark of 115 grand prix victories in all classes.
Acosta was second, 10.2s clear of Bagnaia.
Ai Ogura (Trackhouse) came through to fourth late on ahead of Honda’s Luca Marini and LCR counterpart Diogo Moreira.
Iker Lecuona was an impressive seventh on the Gresini Ducati as he stands in for the injured Marc Marquez, with Jack Miller eighth for Pramac Yamaha after running as high as fourth early on.
Enea Bastianini brushed off two long lap penalties to take ninth on his Tech3 KTM ahead of factory KTM rider Brad Binder.
Toprak Razgatlioglu was 11th on the sister Pramac Yamaha, with Di Giannantonio 12th from Alex Rins (Yamaha), Franco Morbidelli (VR46) and Maverick Vinales (Tech3).
Joan Mir crashed out on lap 15, while Fabio Quartararo retired with four tours to go after being hit with multiple long lap penalties for shortcutting.
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