QUARTARARO DOMINATES BRITISH GP, MILLER JUST OFF PODIUM

Factory Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo dominated the British Motorcycle Grand Prix to further extend his championship lead.

While Quartararo shone at Silverstone, his closest championship rivals finished either just inside or outside of the top 10 positions.

Australian Jack Miller had his best race since the Catalan Grand Prix in June, he fought for the podium on the last lap but came up just short.

Quartararo’s victory was his fifth of the season, and by winning in England became the seventh rider to win the race in its last seven occurrences.

Impressively all six MotoGP manufacturers finished in the top six positions.

From third on the grid, Quartararo made his way up to second at Turn 1 however by the end of the first lap had been shuffled back to fourth.

He sat behind pole-sitter Pol Espargaro, Aleix Espargaro and Francesco Bagnaia, however he was not fazed and methodically made his way up the grid.

On lap 3, Quartararo fired up the inside of Bagnaia at Village to take third, he then overtook Aleix Espargaro on the following lap, before taking the lead on lap 5 with a brave but bold move up the inside at Farm corner.

From there the Frenchman put his head down and quickly gapped the field.

He went on to take a comfortable 2.6s victory ahead of Suzuki rider Alex Rins, his first podium of the season.

There was a tight battle for third on the final lap of the race between Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Miller.

The battle for the podium – Image: Motorsport Images

The Australian briefly took third at Village, however Aleix Espargaro fought back at the next corner to retake the final podium position.

Aleix Espargaro defended strongly in the final couple of corners and held on to take Aprilia Racing’s first-ever MotoGP podium and his first since 2014.

Aleix’s brother Pol led the first several laps but after being overtaken by Quartararo fell back, he was unable to keep up with the fight for the podium and came home fifth on his Honda.

As always KTM rider Brad Binder showed great race pace, the South African charged forwards late on and came in sixth.

His KTM brand mate Iker Lecuona finished seventh, claiming his second top 10 finish in succession.

Alex Marquez was eighth from reigning champion Joan Mir, despite finishing ninth Mir moved up to second in the championship.

Danilo Petrucci was 10th ahead of another championship contender Johann Zarco who struggled for pace all weekend on his Pramac Ducati.

Enea Bastianini and Takaaki Nakagami finished ahead of Bagnaia who plummeted down the field on soft tyres to 14th.

Luca Marini rounded out the 15 point scorers, Miguel Oliveira, Cal Crutchlow, Valentino Rossi and debutant Jake Dixon rounded out the field

Rossi sat as high as sixth early in the race but faded quickly.

On the opening lap rookie sensation Jorge Martin and six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez collided with each other at Club and both crashed out of the race.

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