To say that the racing conditions at the Argentina Grand Prix were challenging would be a complete understatement. As the track remain ‘slippery when wet’ throughout the weekend, it was Marco Bezzecchi who dominated the race and bagged his maiden MotoGP win and also for his team, Mooney VR46. It was the trail-blazing Johan Zarco whose late charge helped him seal the second position while pole-sitter Alex Marquez came third. With VR46, Pramac and Gresini taking the top honours, it was a clean sweep for Ducati satellite teams.
Argentina MotoGP: First Lap Calamities
From the word go, Bezzecchi was quickly out of the block and took the first position from turn 1, while defending champion Francesco Bagnaia, who was shadowing Marquez, managed to hold to third place with a whisker after coming out of turn 1.
The first lap was full of twists as turn 5 saw Saturday’s Sprint Race winner KTM’s Brad Binder slip and slide out of the race as Maverick Vinales from Aprilia muscled his way and overtook the South African. Two turns later, LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami slammed into 2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo forcing the Yamaha rider to go wide and restart the race from 16th place. To everyone’s surprise, the stewards stated it was a racing incident and that no action was taken against the Japanese rider. Even though Quartararo salvaged some pride and finished seventh, he was not amused by the FIA stewards’ decision and said, “… I don’t understand what they (stewards) are doing.”
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Argentina MotoGP: Bagnaia Blunder
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbow for Bagnaia. On lap 15 both the Ducati rider and Marquez swapped places but in the end, the defending champion had the last say as he took the inside line and blazed passed the former Honda rider. It looked like Bagnaia was all set to finish second in the race but on lap 17, he lost control of the bike while taking a turn and crashed. With this slip-up, the Italian rider saw the precious twenty points evaporate.
Argentina MotoGP: Va Va Vroom Zarco
After the Bagnaia crash, the race looked pretty straightforward with Bezzecchi all set to win his first MotoGP race and Marquez and Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli bagging second and third positions respectively. A certain Johan Zarco had other disruptive plans as he kept clocking one fast lap after another. It was a ‘va va vroom’ moment as the Pramac rider left Morbidelli biting the dust in the third last lap and on the last lap, the Flying Frenchman zipped past Marquez to take P2.
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Morbidelli was the best of the rest and finished fourth followed by Jorge Martin from Pramac. It was a classic comeback story for both KTM’s Jack Miller and Quartararo as the Aussie finished sixth after starting 16th while the Yamaha signed off on seventh. The race winner Bezzecchi’s teammate Luca Marini came eighth while LCR Honda’s Alex Rins and Fabio Di Giannantonio from Gresini rounded up the top 10.
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