An Enea Bastianini tyre wear preservation masterclass ensued at the British Grand Prix, with the Italian winning both the Sprint and Sunday races at Silverstone.
Bastianini becomes the 10th different winner in as many races at Silverstone and gains his first win of the season.
The factory Ducati duo of Francesco Bagania and Bastianini got out of the floodgates well to take the lead in the first corner, with Jorge Martin overtaking pole-sitter Aleix Espargaro.
Brad Binder’s promising qualifying position of sixth was meaningless as his start, which caused him to fall to the back of the grid. His engine collapsed which put him out of proceedings before the first lap’s completion.
Trackhouse Aprilia rider duo Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira both crashed out in the opening lap in what was a disastrous day for the American outfit.
Lap 3 saw Pramac’s Martin and Espargaro establish overtakes on factory Ducati’s Bastianini, with four bike lengths distance separating Bagnaia to second and third.
Espargaro formulated the fastest lap on Lap 3 to try and keep himself in contention with the two title contenders at the front.
The Gresini Ducati brothers were keeping themselves in contention with the GP24s, but younger brother Alex Marquez was losing time to the leading five.
Fabio Di Giannantonio overtook Pedro Acosta aboard his VR46 Ducati, elevating himself up to the seventh spot.
The VR46 Ducati rider showed the world why he is Ducati’s chosen one for a GP25, making a successful lunge on Marquez on Lap 7 to place himself sixth.
Bagnaia and Martin continued to lead proceedings heading into the second half of the race, with the pair establishing a second advantage over Aprilia’s Espargaro.
Espargaro ran wide at the end of the Hangar straight, which allowed Bastianini to reclaim third spot.
The factory Ducati rider notoriously improves as the race progresses, which would lead to a close end.
Martin found an opening to forge his way through Bagnaia at the start of Lap 12, but the following Lap ran wide in the same corner, which brought Bastianini back into contention.
Martin pushed his lead out once more, but Bagnaia was under pressure from his team-mates.
In Turn 7 at Luffield championship leader Bagnaia made a small mistake which put Bastianini up into second, with the factory Ducati rider eyeing the main prize.
Joan Mir’s race ended abruptly, and he was forced to enter the pitlane early, a disappointing outcome for the 2020 champion who was once occupying the tail end of the points.
Older brother Marquez was the next rider to overtake Espargaro to take fourth spot, eyeing up a late podium move.
Martin’s tyres fell off a cliff in the closing laps, which enabled Bastianini to squeeze past following a mistake in the second last lap.
Bastianini and factory Ducati’s win puts him back in contention for the championship as Martin regains the lead off Bagnaia following the reigning double champion’s Sprint race crash.
Bagnaia could only muster third position, with Marquez slotting his Gresini in fourth and only a second adrift of his future GP25 team-mate.
Di Giannantonio snatched fifth off Espargaro in the final laps, with the Aprilia not being able to extract anything in the latter stages.
Marquez and Gresini salvaged seventh with Marco Bezzecchi a distant eighth, ahead of lead KTM rider Pedro Acosta.
Pramac rider Franco Morbidelli rounded off the top ten despite the double long lap penalty he was issued from Saturday’s Sprint, ahead of old team-mate Fabio Quartararo and KTM’s Jack Miller.
Maverick Vinales finished in a below-par 13th for Aprilia despite its strong pace over the weekend, with Johann Zarco earning two important points for Honda.
Luca Marini rounds off the point-scoring positions in 15th to make it back-to-back point-scoring weekends ahead of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami.
Augusto Fernandez and Remy Gardner rounded off proceedings with the final two places in the classifcation.
