It’s absolutely game on in the FIM Enel MotoE™ World Cup after the LCR E-Team’s Eric Granado made it two wins from two races at the CryptoDATA Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich. The Brazilian’s double triumph at the Red Bull Ring – Spielberg means he trails Dominque Aegerter (Dynavolt Intact GP MotoE™) by just 17.5 points with 50 on offer in the sixth and final round of the season at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. Aegerter finished third in Race 2 in Austria thanks to a final-corner pass, while Miquel Pons helped the LCR E-Team to a one-two in the seven-lap contest.

Mattia Casadei (Pons Racing 40) got the holeshot from the middle of the front row and Matteo Ferrari (Felo Gresini MotoE™) passed pole-sitter Granado for second at Turn 1. Kevin Zannoni (Ongetta SIC58 Squadracorse) lunged at both Granado and Pons at Turn 3, but Granado had the better exit and would emerge still in third place. Down at Turn 4, Aegerter very nearly crashed under brakes, but held on to his Energica Ego Corsa and also to sixth spot.

Granado overtook Ferrari at the start of Lap 3, and was quickly onto the tail of Casadei in the battle for the lead. He made his move through Turn 6 on Lap 4, but Casadei stuck with him. The man who fell – literally – two corners short of victory in Race 1 on the afternoon prior then tried to reclaim first position from Granado at the start of the seventh and final lap of Race 2, nosing ahead but unable to make the pass stick.

In the meantime, Aegerter had climbed to fourth, despite running well wide at Turn 1 on Lap 6 – showing all of his usual late-race speed. Still, Granado could take comfort from the fact that LCR team-mate Pons had himself risen to third, and was therefore soaking up precious World Cup points. Pons would have another four points of his own when he eventually completed a final-lap pass for second place on Casadei through Turn 6.

However, that was not the end of the story. Aegerter was searching for a podium result of his down and while Casadei was defensive when they arrived at Turn 9, he could not keep the Swiss rider behind him at the final corner of the race. Aegerter claimed third and a solid 16 points, with Casadei fourth and Ferrari taking the chequered flag in fifth. The latter would officially be classified ninth though, due to a three-second penalty for exceeding track limits, meaning Alex Escrig (Tech3 E-Racing) inherited fifth in the classification.

Rounding out the top 10 were Xavi Cardelus (Avintia Esponsorama Racing), Hikari Okubo (Avant Ajo MotoE™), Hector Garzo (Tech3 E-Racing), Ferrari, and Jordi Torres (Pons Racing 40). All 15 riders who took the start made the finish, but Xavi Fores (Octo Pramac MotoE™) was a DNS after his bike was pushed off the starting grid just before lights went out, and Bradley Smith (WithU GRT RNF MotoE™ Team) had already been declared unfit following a crash in Race 1.

For Aegerter and Granado, there is still everything left to play for when the FIM Enel MotoE™ World Cup heads to the Gran Premio Gryfyn di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini for the final round of the season. See who will take ultimate MotoE™ glory on September 2-4!

MotoE™ Race 2 Top 10:

1. Eric Granado (LCR E-Team)
2. Miquel Pons (LCR E-Team) + 0.248
3. Dominique Aegerter (Dynavolt Intact GP MotoE™) + 0.428
4. Mattia Casadei (Pons Racing 40) + 0.482
5. Alex Escrig (Tech3 E-Racing) + 2.641
6. Xavi Cardelus (Avintia Esponsorama Racing) + 2.769
7. Hikari Okubo (Avant Ajo MotoE™) + 3.082
8. Hector Garzo (Tech3 E-Racing) + 3.311
9. Matteo Ferrari (Felo Gresini MotoE™) + 3.952
10. Jordi Torres (Pons Racing 40) + 4.455

For the first time in his career Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) is a hat-trick hero after leading from start to finish in a tense CryptoDATA Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich. In the end, Pecco’s win advantage was just 0.4s to World Championship leader Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP™) who produces a phenomenal ride to finish P2 ahead of third place Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team). 

In front of 92,000 jubilant fans the lights went out for the MotoGP™ race and it was Bagnaia who grabbed the holeshot from Enea Bastianini (Gresini Racing MotoGP™), Miller slotted into P3 with Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing) holding station in P4. Quartararo got a decent start but at the end of the first lap, Maverick Viñales (Aprilia Racing) passed the Frenchman to demote the Championship leader to P6. Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing), meanwhile, didn’t get a good getaway after his holeshot device didn’t engage but the number 41 recovered to P7 at the beginning of the second lap. Elsewhere, Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ecstar) crashed out at Turn 4 on the first lap and it was later confirmed the 2020 World Champion suffered ligament damage in his foot.

The leading Ducati quartet quickly found themselves over a second clear of Viñales, who had stretched his advantage over Quartararo to half a second. It wasn’t line astern in the lead group though. Miller overtook Bastianini at Turn 3 and Martin then had a successful bite at the cherry, only for Bastianini to snap back at Turn 1 on Lap 5. Viñales then made a mistake down at Turn 4, the Spaniard dropped behind Aleix Espargaro and Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac Racing), before drama unfolded further up the road.

Bastianini looked like he had a problem going into Turn 3. Zarco did an excellent job of taking avoiding action as the Italian slowed right down through no fault of his own, before the polesitter then ran straight into the gravel a few seconds later at Turn 4. Was there an issue? It certainly looked like it as Bastianini was then forced to retire.

This saw Bagnaia and Miller open a one second advantage over Martin, Quartararo was a further 1.3s away in P4 with Espargaro and Viñales P5 and P6. Martin was digging deep and on Lap 11 of 28, the Spaniard was right with his Ducati stablemates. Quartararo was still 1.4s behind the third of the GP22s and had main title rival Espargaro 1.1s adrift, as Bagnaia set a personal best lap to gain a 0.6s lead over Miller.

On Lap 14, Quartararo set his personal best lap of the race and the reigning Champion was now 0.6s behind Martin. The latter made a mistake at the chicane with 12 laps to go and was forced to give the position up to Quartararo, but did Martin then have a problem? He raised his hand coming out of Turn 4 to signal he might have but he was back at full speed soon enough.

The situation with eight laps to go was this: Bagnaia boasted a 0.9s lead over teammate Miller, who was now hearing Quartararo’s YZR-M1 swarming all over the back of his GP22 tail. Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) picked off Aleix Espargaro for P5, and Espargaro was coming under pressure from Zarco and Alex Rins (Team Suzuki Ecstar). Martin was still in P4, 0.6s away from Quartararo. That 0.6s gap soon became 0.3s with Martin now the fastest rider on track.

With four laps to go, a sensational move at Turn 2B saw Quartararo carve his way past Miller up into P2. Miller just held off Martin for P3 as Quartararo saw Bagnaia 1.5s up the road at the beginning of Lap 26 of 28. Starting Lap 27, Quartararo had clawed 0.2s back and starting the last lap, it was under a second!

Martin, up the inside of Miller, crashed unhurt at Turn 1 which gave Miller an easy ride home to P3. But could Quartararo do anything to stop Bagnaia from winning? No, not quite, although he wasn’t far away. Pecco took victory by just 0.4s to make it a hat-trick and reduce the gap to the Frenchman to 44 points, with Miller on the podium again in P3.

Fourth place for Marini is the Italian’s best result in the premier class to date, he eventually held off Zarco in fifth by less than half a second. 2.4s further behind was Aleix Espargaro who sees his disadvantage to Quartararo grow to 32 points heading to Misano, but on a tough weekend for the Spaniard, it could have been worse from P9 on the grid.

Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) gave KTM a P7 on their home patch, it was another solid Sunday rider for the South African, as he and Rins were separated by a tenth on the line. Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) claimed P9 ahead of Martin in 10th, the latter able to remount after his last lap tumble at Turn 1.

Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Racing MotoGP™), Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), Viñales, Alex Marquez (LCR Honda Castrol) and Andrea Dovizioso (WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP™ Team) rounded out the points positions at the Red Bull Ring.

The title race pendulum is definitely swinging towards Bagnaia at this moment in time, and coming up next is the Italian’s home race at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli – a track he knows like the back of his hand. Quartararo though extends his lead, but the Frenchman, Espargaro and Bagnaia are now split by just 44 points. Game on. 

Top 10:
1. Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team)
2. Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP™) + 0.492
3. Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team) + 2.163
4. Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) + 8.348
5. Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac Racing) + 8.821
6. Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing) + 11.287
7. Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) + 11.642
8. Alex Rins (Team Suzuki Ecstar) + 11.780
9. Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) + 16.987
10. Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing) + 17.144

Ai Ogura has moved into the Moto2™ World Championship lead with victory in the CryptoDATA Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich, even if Idemitsu Honda Team Asia team-mate Somkiat Chantra seemingly ignored team orders and attacked on the final lap. Chantra went down the inside at Turn 9, the second-last corner of the race, but Ogura re-passed him immediately at Turn 10 to collect 25 crucial points. There was similar drama in the battle for the final podium place, Jake Dixon (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) passing Pedro Acosta for third at Turn 10 also. Acosta therefore finished fourth on his return from a broken femur, one position up on now former Championship-leading Red Bull KTM Ajo team-mate Augusto Fernandez.

Ogura made a good start from pole position and took a clear lead to the first corner, while Alonso Lopez (CAG Speed Up) wrested second place from Fernandez at Turn 2a. Fernandez came under further attack in the opening stages, shuffled all the way back to eighth when Aron Canet (Flexbox HP40) went past at Turn 3 on Lap 2. Ahead, Chantra ran in third, from Dixon, Acosta, and Celestino Vietti (Mooney VR46 Racing Team).

Lopez overtook Ogura for the lead later that lap at Turn 9, but handed it back when he ran wide on Lap 4 at Turn 4. The Spaniard also ceded second place exactly two laps later when Chantra came in hot under brakes, making contact on his way through as he barely kept control of his bike. Meanwhile, Vietti had taken fifth spot from Acosta after an error from #51 on Lap 5 at Turn 5.

On Lap 7, Dixon ran long at both Turns 3 and 4, dropping all the way back to eighth position and hence promoting Fernandez back to seventh. The Briton’s first ‘moment’ also gave Vietti a look at Lopez, but those two drifted to 1.5 seconds behind the leading Honda Team Asia duo before the VR46 pilot assumed third spot when the Speed Up rider ran wide at Turn 4 on Lap 10.

Acosta passed Lopez for fourth on Lap 13 but when they both had messy runs through the chicane on Lap 14, bottling up the pack, Fernandez capitalised with a double pass up the hill at Turn 3 to take up fifth spot, from Canet, Dixon, and Lopez. However, the KTM Ajo rider lost that spot to Canet on Lap 15 and was back to seventh when Dixon made a move at the chicane on Lap 16.

Meanwhile, Vietti had been racking up fastest laps to catch up to second-placed Chantra. He looked likely to go past eventually until disaster struck on lap 17, when he crashed at Turn 3. The incident handed Chantra a five-second buffer over third place and while Vietti remounted, last of the 26 still running, he would eventually retreat to pit lane and retire.

With Ogura first and Fernandez sixth after the Vietti crash, the race leader was in the live World Championship lead by two points. While Chantra was latched onto his rear wheel with more than half a dozen laps to go, Honda Team Asia was clearly thinking big picture, as evidenced by a pitboard message to the man in second place of ‘P2 OK’.

Whether he saw that or not, Chantra decided that P2 was not particularly OK. He went for a pass on the 25th and final lap at Turn 9 and briefly got ahead, only for Ogura to come back down his inside at the last right-hander. They flashed across the finish line just 0.173 seconds apart, but that was not the end of the drama.

Dixon and Fernandez had got back up to fourth and fifth respetively, ahead of Canet, by the time they started the last lap, but the former was not done yet. Dixon made one unsuccessful attempt to pass Acosta midway through the final tour, but then got the job done at Turn 10 to snatch the final podium place.

The rest of the points finishers in 11th through 15th respectively were Jorge Navarro (Flexbox HP40), Barry Baltus (RW Racing GP), Cameron Beaubier (American Racing), Joe Roberts (Italtrans Racing Team), and Bo Bendsneyder (Pertamina Mandalika SAG Team), while Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Italtrans Racing Team) and Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS Racing Team) were among the nine DNFs. They had been eighth and ninth when Dalla Porta was slow off Turn 3 on Lap 18 and Arbolino, with nowhere to go, crashed into him. As for Vietti, he is still third in the standings, but is now 27 points off top spot.

The title fight could barely be closer, and there is still so much left to play out this season! Catch Round 14, the Gran Premio Gryfyn di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, on September 2-4.

Moto2™ Race Top 10:

1. Ai Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia)
2. Somkiat Chantra (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) + 0.173
3. Jake Dixon (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) + 7.854
4. Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Ajo) + 7.960
5. Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull KTM Ajo) + 8.037
6. Aron Canet (Flexbox HP40) + 9.401
7. Alonso Lopez (CAG Speed Up) + 12.995
8. Marcel Schrötter (Liqui Moly Intact GP) + 18.254
9. Albert Arenas (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) + 20.661
10. Jeremy Alcoba (Liqui Moly Intact GP) + 22.227