Morbidelli secures controlled Alcaniz GP victory, Marquez and Nakagami crash

Franco Morbidelli cruised to a second win of the 2020 MotoGP season with an assured ride to head Alex Rins by the end of the Alcaniz Grand Prix at Aragon.

Crowded by pole-man Takaaki Nakagami after making a good start from the middle of the front row, Morbidelli managed to hold position after fending off Rins after having to ease off into Turn 1.

Second would become first just seconds later though after Nakagami threw away his advantage after running slightly wide at Turn 5, the LCR Honda racer losing the front as a result and sliding off into a heartbreaking early retirement following what had been a dominant weekend up to that point.

Morbidelli and Rins would then begin to break away from third-placed Johann Zarco across the opening stages, defending Aragon victor Rins seemingly content to follow the Yamaha for the time being.

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The Spaniard managed to keep the gap to Morbidelli pegged at just under a second for the bulk of the distance, but with around a quarter of the race to go started fade off the back of the M1-the Suzuki man’s soft-soft tyre strategy likely starting to cost him in the latter laps.

The ’17 Moto2 champion extended his leading advantage to over two seconds across the remaining handful of laps, taking a controlled victory 2.2 seconds ahead of Rins.

Joan Mir recovered well from an average qualifying result to bag his sixth rostrum of the year in third, extending his championship lead over his closest rivals once again.

Pol Espargaro enjoyed a strong race to lift his KTM RC16 to fourth after seemingly being in no-mans land across the event, denying Zarco as the Avintia racer’s tyres began to go off in the final segment of the encounter.

The Frenchman was in addition forced to hold off the charging Tech 3 KTM example of Miguel Oliveira, a feat he was able to achieve by just 0.038.

It was a tricky day for Yamaha’s other two pilots, Maverick Vinales unable to keep up with the leading group of riders on his way to seventh just ahead of title rival Fabio Quartararo.

Iker Lecuona matched his best result of the year in ninth on the second Tech 3 machine, while Danilo Petrucci completed the top ten on his factory Ducati.

Team-mate Andrea Dovizioso looked to be staging a late comeback after passing Aleix Espargaro’s Aprilia and Cal Crutchlow before closing down the battle for eighth between Quartararo and Oliveira at that point.

The Italian was then re-passed by Espargaro though, and soon dropped back trough the field agter making an error by running wide at Turn 7, ultimately taking the chequered flag a disastrous 13^th.

Honda’s terrible day got worse following Nakagami’s early exit as Alex Marquez also dropped out just past mid-distance.

As the only man in the field to opt for the hard-compound front tyre, the factory Honda ace looked to be putting in a similar performance to last weekend’s Aragon GP in which he finished second after climbing to fourth behind Mir, only to drop his RC213-V at Turn 2 after losing the front.

Espargaro and Aprilia’s solid day was also ruined late on after the RS-GP cried enough while its rider challenged Quartararo for eighth with just a couple tours remaining.

Jack Miller’s unlucky ’20 campaign continued after being taken out by Brad Binder at the second bend on the opening lap.

The South African tried to carry too much momentum into the corner, the KTM then running clean into the rear of the Aussie’s Ducati-causing the pair to go down and out of the race as a result.

Mir’s points advantage now stands at 14 with just three rounds remaining, with Vinales now 19 behind and just 6 ahead of the victorious Morbidelli in fourth.

Dovizioso drops to fifth overall, the Ducati rider’s title chances looking ever more remote as he now sits 28 points from the head of the standings.

Alcañiz, Sunday, October 25, 2020