A relentless Marc Marquez won the Australian MotoGP Grand Prix, beating championship leader Jorge Martin in a real battle, with Francesco Bagnaia relegated to third place .

Marquez thus grabs his third win of the season after a start that seemed almost condemned to remain outside the podium zone.

Not even Bagnaia and Martin were able to contain the competitive fury of the Spaniard from Team Gresini, who slipped to sixth position after the green light came on due to a tear-off visor that ended up under his rear tire. From there, the Spaniard started a constant climb, passing Bezzecchi, Morbidelli, Bagnaia and especially Martin with four laps to go, giving rise to a high-tension, all-Spanish battle.

Despite the defeat , Martin still strengthened his lead over Bagnaia, taking him to 20 points in the title race with three weekends to go .

Ducati-VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio finished fourth ahead of Enea Bastianini, and Pramac's Franco Morbidelli.

"I didn't expect to win after the mistake I made right at the start, I didn't expect to catch Martin because he was very strong, but I decided not to save the tire, go full speed ahead and see where I would end up. That inconvenience at the start made me make a fantastic comeback full of risks", Marquez commented at the end of the race.

Martin, on the other hand, was mainly thinking about the standings: «It was definitely a difficult race . I felt good, I had the same sensations as yesterday. However, the wind was very strong and this made it difficult to build a safety margin over my opponents - he said - I was satisfied with second place, I was careful to bring home this placing and the 20 points . That's fine, I gained ground in the World Championship this weekend».

Bagnaia was disappointed : "It would have been difficult to do more than that today. Now we will have two races in which I feel much better in terms of feeling . I gave everything I could to stay with Jorge and Marc, but I had problems entering corners and they did better ."

Martin was fast all weekend, taking pole position and leading from start to finish in Saturday's sprint race, where Bagnaia finished fourth.

Although the championship is effectively a two-horse race, today's win puts Marc Marquez 79 points behind in third and has a slim chance of spoiling the party . Next week the circuit moves to Thailand , before Malaysia and the season finale in Valencia .

(Online Union)

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