Bagnaia knew how to play his tricks throughout the race and, although in the final laps, Viñales tried to get his first win with Aprilia, he had to settle for second place, ahead of Australian Jack Miller (Ducati Desmosedici GP22).
Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia RS-GP), who suffered a heavy crash on Saturday, overcame as he could to the pain to hold on in the leading group and even try to overcome his rival for the title and leader of the championship, the current champion Quartararo, who could barely get a point ahead of the Spaniard on the last lap.
Zarco and Quartararo came out like a shot, the first from pole position and the second from fourth place, but from much further back, from tenth position he surprised many of his rivals, up to five, the Spanish Alex Rins (Suzuki GSX RR), while Maverick Viñales (Aprilia RS-GP), who started second, was overtaken by some of his rivals.
The Frenchman from Ducati came out like a shot to try to put land in between and as soon as the first lap was completed, Race Direction warned that Quartararo could already fulfill his “long lap” penaltyfor which he had three laps without being penalized again.
With Zarco in the lead, Quartararo stuck to his slipstream, the two Frenchmen being chased by Jack Miller, “Pecco” Bagnaia, Alex Rins and the two Aprilia riders, Maverick Viñales and Aleix Espargaró, who took it somewhat calmly, knowing that there had been still 18 laps ahead
Johann Zarco, who has never achieved victory in MotoGP, remained firm in his pace at the head of the race with Fabio Quartararo already forced to make his “long lap” penalty, followed by Jack Miller, Alex Rins and “Pecco” Bagnaia in the first instance. Quartararo got into the “long lap” zone second and started between Bagnaia and Viñales, in fifth position, and just ahead of the Spanish Jorge Martín (Ducati Desmosedici GP22), who had just overtaken Aleix Espargaró and who lost one of the wings of his motorcycle in a “touch” in full exit with several rivals.
One more time, Zarco was left without climbing to the top of the podium when he crashed in turn eight of the fifth lapbut tried to continue from the last position and leaving Miller and Rins in front of the test, who in that same lap tried to overtake the Australian on several occasions, without success, until the next lap, when in the second set he returned to the attack and this time he did leave Miller behind.
The leading group was very united, with Alex Rins leading, but closely followed by Miller, Bagnaia, Quartararo, Martín, Viñales and Aleix Espargaró, who drew all possible strength from his weakness to try to hold on in the leading group after Saturday’s sharp drop.
The Spaniard from Suzuki was gradually taking some advantage over his chasing group, made up of up to eleven riders who, at that time, were riding practically in single file, with Jorge Martín as the main protagonist, overtaking rivals until he was fourth, while Aleix Espargaró gradually recovered the distance lost in the first laps.
On the ninth turn, Maverick Viñales managed to overtake Fabio Quartararo to try to “get hooked” to the wheel of the two official Ducatis of Miller and Bagnaia and to that of Jorge Martín, while his teammate, Johann Zarco, gave up on continuing, after the fall, and took the path to his workshop.
Bagnaia began to close the gap with Rins by leaps and bounds after beating his teammate Miller, while Quartararo could not get past sixth position and two places behind was Aleix Espargaró, whose main goal at Silverstone had to be to finish in front of the French as it was to reduce the differences in the provisional championship.
The Italian saw the opportunity to overtake Rins on lap twelve, in the second set, and took advantage of it. By then, ten riders were “holding” the pace in the lead group.
But Bagnaia initially failed to escape from his rivals and in his wake both Rins and Miller held out, Viñales, who gave a good account of Martín, Quartararo, Mir, Aleix Espargaró, Enea Bastianini and Miguel Oliveira, who were the ones who formed the leading group,
Joan Mir was the first casualty in that group when he suffered a crash at turn seven, moments after he and Aleix Espargaró, the Italian “The Beast” Bastianini, overtook them.
Ahead of them, Maverick Viñales began his particular attack by first overcoming Jorge Martín and shortly after Alex Rins, to try to hunt down the leading duo, Bagnaia and Miller.
Viñales “chased” Miller a little over three laps from the end and went in the wake of Bagnaia, still the leader, although the Spaniard was riding almost three tenths of a second faster than the Italian in search of his first victory with Aprilia and the third with a different make of the championship, because the man from Roses knows what it means to win with Suzuki -he did it in 2016 in Silverstone-, and later with Yamaha.
Viñales made a first attempt to gain the lead shortly after but Bagnaia gave him back the action and entered the last lap as the leader, with Viñales “squeezing” his rival as best he could, although in the end he had to settle for second place ahead of Miller.
Fourth place went to Bastianini, who won his particular duel against Jorge Martín, with the Portuguese Miguel Oliveira in fifth position ahead of Alex Rins, Fabio Quartararo, Aleix Espargaró and Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati Desmosedici GP22), who were the ones who occupied the top ten positions.
The Repsol Honda rider, Spaniard Pol Espargaró, had to settle for fourteenth place, with Alex Márquez (Honda RC 213 V), seventeenth, and Raúl Fernández (KTM RC 16), twenty-first.
