Ducati Festival in Mugello

Mugello wears red: After the five-fold victory in the sprint on Saturday, Ducati followed up with another quadruple coup on its home and farm track at the Grand Prix of the Motorcycle World Championship. Francesco Bagnaia was dominant, who was the first to extend his lead in the World Cup. Best of the rest was KTM man Brad Binder in fifth. The South African also managed a respectable success. With his RC16 he set a new top speed record of 366.1 km/h in the premier MotoGP class.

“It was definitely one of the best race weekends in my career so far,” said Bagnaia, who reached the maximum number of 37 points in Mugello – and is now 21 points ahead of his closest pursuer Marco Bezzecchi, who finished eighth. KTM driver Jack Miller snatched the top position from Bagnaia with a great start, but the Italian fought back in turn two and then drove confidently to his third win of the season in front of his brand colleagues Jorge Martin, Johann Zarco and Luca Marini. In the end, Miller stayed in seventh place.

For the six-time world champion Marc Marquez (Honda), the race started on the front row, but ended with a crash on the sixth lap. It was his fourth failure in a row. His brother Alex (Ducati) also slipped into the gravel trap on lap 15 with third place in mind.

Binder, on the other hand, was satisfied with his fifth place. Especially because his machine is equipped for a hot summer. “The bike is an absolute rocket, the team did a great job. Overtaking is really fun with it, it will give us a lot of joy in the future,” said the 27-year-old after the speed record he set in the sprint race on the 1.141 km long start -Target straights sat. He surpassed the old record of the Spaniard Martin of 363.6 km/h from the previous year at the same place by 2.5 km/h.

However, Binder, who was so strong in the newly introduced sprints this year, was not enough for valuable World Championship points this time. After a long lap penalty, only eleventh place looked out. In the constructors’ ranking, the Upper Austrian motorcycle manufacturer is in second place far behind Ducati.

Rins and Mir were injured

Alex Rins was unlucky. The Honda driver fell so badly in the sprint that he sustained a double fracture in his right leg – and had to undergo surgery. Joan Mir already announced on Friday that he would not start for Mugello due to a finger injury.

The classic at the Sachsenring is already waiting for next weekend.

Two KTM triumphs

In Moto2, young KTM star Pedro Acosta safely clinched his third win of the season, while Tony Arbolino defended his world championship lead in second place. Notable Aron Canet, who finished fourth with a broken metacarpal. In Moto3, too, there was a KTM triumph by world championship leader Daniel Holgado. Jakob Rosenthaler from Linz almost got his first podium in the Rookies Cup, but the opponent in front of him crashed on the last lap.