Martin beats Bezzecchi in French GP to ignite MotoGP title duel
Jorge Martin defeated Aprilia team-mate and main MotoGP title rival Marco Bezzecchi in victory battle at the French Grand Prix at Le Mans.
With the factory Aprilia duo the overwhelming title favourites following reigning champion Marc Marquez's injury withdrawal for two rounds, their battle took on extra significance - and Martin's charge enabled a 10-point championship swing.
Bezzecchi took the lead off the line, allowed to establish an early buffer by scrapping between Fabio Quartararo and Pedro Acosta right behind him.
Martin, who went eighth to first in the span of three corners in the sprint, had another great start here but found himself boxed in, so sat seventh initially.
With Bezzecchi in control, his good friend (and future team-mate) Pecco Bagnaia undid some of the damage from a poor start from pole by working his way past Quartararo and Acosta - but went down from second on lap 16 at the Dunlop chicane.
By that point a charging Martin had been bearing down on the podium trio, and it took him little time to clear Acosta for second - though the block-pass through the Dunlop chicane left him 1.6s off the lead.
But Martin had much more in hand than Bezzecchi, whittling down the lead in multi-tenth chunks, so with five laps to go he was already in near-striking range.
The move finally came on the third-to-last lap, lap 25, with Bezzecchi having no response to an attack into the chicane and unable to keep pressure up on Martin.
Acosta had faded significantly by then, but Bezzecchi was nearly vulnerable in second to a charging Ai Ogura, who like Martin had scythed his way through the field.
Ogura ultimately settled for his first MotoGP podium and rounding out an Aprilia 1-2-3. With Raul Fernandez in eighth, Aprilia now has all four of its full-time riders in the top six in the standings - with Bezzecchi and Martin split by just one point at the top.
Acosta was denied one more position at the very end, picked off by Fabio Di Giannantonio entering Raccordement and having to accept fifth place.
Quartararo brought the V4-engined Yamaha in sixth, capping off the new bike's best-by-an-enormous-margin weekend so far.
He had been briefly relegated to seventh when Honda rider Joan Mir went past but Mir crashed a lap later, meaning he has one finish (a 15th place) from five Sunday races this season.
There were also crashes from Brad Binder, Diogo Moreira and Alex Marquez.
Race results
1 Jorge Martin (Aprilia)
2 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) +0.477s
3 Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) +0.874s
4 Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) +2.851s
5 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +2.991s
6 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) +7.756s
7 Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM) +8.615s
8 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) +12.497s
9 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) +14.903s
10 Luca Marini (Honda) +15.016s
11 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) +16.549s
12 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +32.343s
13 Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pramac Yamaha) +32.476s
14 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) +32.774s
15 Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha) +36.059s
16 Jonas Folger (Tech3 KTM) +1m13.229s
DNF Brad Binder (KTM)
DNF Joan Mir (Honda)
DNF Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati)
DNF Diogo Moreira (LCR Honda)
DNF Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati)
