British MotoGP RACE Results | Impeccable Quartararo wins, takes big title stride

Fabio Quartararo took a potentially pivotal stride towards the 2021 MotoGP World Championship title with a masterful showing at Silverstone for victory in the British MotoGP.

The Frenchman recovered from an indifferent start that left him fourth initially to pick his way up the through the top three one-by-one. 

Relieving Pol Espargaro of the lead on lap four, Quartararo was thereafter never challenged again, steadily multiplying his advantage to the chequered flag for Yamaha’s first win at Silverstone since 2015 and his fifth win of the season.

Alex Rins recorded his first podium of the season, two years on from his spectacular photo-finish success over Marc Marquez, while Aprilia is at last a MotoGP podium winner after Aleix Espargaro grinded out a determined third place finish for the Italian marque.

Espargaro may have been the crowd favourite but it was Quartararo’s day ultimately yet again, a celebration boosted further by it coinciding with a torrid afternoon for his main title rivals - Joan Mir, Pecco Bagnaia and Johann Zarco - as they floundered well down the order to lose a significant chunk of ground to what will no be increasingly an odds-on bet for the championship.

With Mir down in ninth, Bagnaia 14th and Zarco in 11th, Quartararo’s maximum of 25 points swells his advantage from 47 points to 65 points. Defending champion Mir now leads the increasingly distant chase for Suzuki with only six races left to run. 

Indeed, it was a rewarding day for Quartararo, who didn’t lose his cool as they bunched into the first corner, with a determined Aleix Espargaro jostling his way ahead into second place, right behind his pole-sitting, hole-shot grabbing brother Pol Espargaro, the pair giving the family a great photo opportunity as they circulated together 1-2 for the first three laps.

Further back though there was drama when Jorge Martin and Marc Marquez collided and slid into retirement on lap one at Luffield.

The fracas started at Aintree when Marquez ran a wide line, only to cut back into the path of Martin causing contact.

When the Pramac Ducati man ran wide at Brooklands, Marquez’s attempt to slice up the inside for Luffield would see him clip the GP21 and take them both down. It represents Marquez’s fifth accident in the last eight races.

Back at the front, Quartararo was soon on the move, dispatching of Bagnaia on lap three before on the next revolution disposing of Aleix at Aintree and Pol for the lead at Brooklands.

Wasting no time in getting the hammer down, Quartararo pulled his lead out to four seconds before backing off to protect his tyres in a race that saw the timesheets almost flip in the closing laps amid severe tyre degradation for a number of key runners.

These included Bagnaia, who was already steadily slipping back before his pace fell off a cliff and he was demoted to 14th by the flag, while Mir suffered a similar fate having run as high as fifth.

Going in the other direction, Suzuki team-mate Rins worked his way to the front of the chasing pack, passing Pol with eight laps to go, but couldn’t make a dent in Quartararo’s lead.

With Pol fading back to fifth, it was left to Aleix to assume a significant third position on the road and on course for the manufacturer’s first ever MotoGP podium (four-stroke era). With Miller closing down quickly towards the end, the pair swapped positions in the Farm-Vale complex before Espargaro coolly got the undercut around Aintree. 

Holding his line through Luffield, Espargaro was able to slingshot the RS-GP across the line for a long awaited podium result - his first since Aragon 2014 and Aprilia’s first premier class rostrum since the 1997 Dutch TT.

Miller was left to settle for fourth, ahead of Espargaro, who picked up his best finish of the year in fifth place.

Austrian MotoGP winner Brad Binder came on strong in the latter stages having run outside the top ten for much of the race, grabbing sixth at the flag for KTM, just ahead of his Tech 3 counterpart Iker Lecuona for his second consecutive top eight finish.

Alex Marquez was eighth after fading late on too, from a similarly troubled Mir, while Danilo Petrucci rounded out the top ten.

Zarco was barely a factor as he endured an afternoon to forget, while Enea Bastianini, Takaaki Nakagami, Bagnaia and Luca Marini picked up the final points.

2021 British MotoGP | Silverstone | Race RESULTS