San Marino MotoGP, RACE RESULTS | Bagnaia resists Quartararo; Bastianini podium

Pecco Bagnaia has notched up back-to-back MotoGP wins with a hard fought victory in Misano over a hard charging Fabio Quartararo, while Enea Bastianini produced a stunning ride to secure his maiden podium in third.

A thrilling end to what was looking like a comfortable victory for Bagnaia a week after withstanding intense pressure from Marc Marquez to claim his maiden MotoGP win in Aragon, instead the Italian was forced to hold off a determined late assault from an impressive Quartararo.

Indeed, all bets seemed to be off after the opening revolutions as Bagnaia converted his lap record-breaking pole position into a big lead of more than a second at the end of the first lap.

This swelled to almost three seconds when Jack Miller in second place ran wide on lap eight, which in turn allowed Quartararo - who lost ground in a back and forth with Jorge Martin initially - back onto the tail of the Ducati.

When the championship leading Frenchman got the better of Miller on lap 14, it left him with just 13 laps to complete the seemingly insurmountable task of hunting down home favourite Bagnaia.

However, his medium rear tyre - compared with the soft rear on Bagnaia’s Ducati - proved to be an inspired choice and Quartararo began taking chunks out of the lead in the closing laps, putting him right on the tail of the GP21 coming into the final lap.

Nevertheless, Bagnaia was wise to Quartararo’s efforts and never allowed the Yamaha man to get a sniff of an overtake around a nervy final lap, the Italian securing an emotional win on home soil to erase the heartache of crashing out of the lead in Misano last year while riding for Pramac, and then again at the Italian MotoGP in Mugello earlier this year.

Despite running out of laps to get Bagnaia, Quartararo will be satisfied to have limited the damage to his healthy championship lead, giving him a 48 point advantage with only four races now remaining.

Enea Bastianini stuns for maiden MotoGP podium

Sharing the spotlight and cheers of the local crowd, however, was Bastianini, who followed up his career-best result of sixth in Aragon last weekend with a spectacular run to third place from 12th on the grid.

Achieved on sheer pace that matched - and occasionally exceeded - the leaders, Bastianini picked his way up to third position on the two-year old Ducati GP19, giving Avintia Racing only its second ever podium in MotoGP ahead of its departure at the end of the year.

A frustrated Joan Mir was fourth across the line, only to be demoted to sixth after exceeding track limits one too many times in the closing stages. Indeed, Mir had a sobering afternoon as he struggled to make early headway from 11th on the grid but - as he often does - came alive in the closing stages, getting past both Marc Marquez and Miller, before being pushed back down again.

His misfortune promoted Marquez up to fourth, the Spaniard looking frisky early on before his tempo dropped.

Even so, he did get the better of Miller for fifth - becoming fourth - the Australian ending up fifth at the expense of Mir.

Pol won the battle of the Espargaros in seventh place, with his brother Aleix eighth having run fourth early on, while Brad Binder made the best of a bad weekend for KTM with a determined ride to ninth and Takaaki Nakagami rounded out the top ten.

Michele Pirro scored a decent 11th on his return to action as a wild-card for Ducati, ahead of Johann Zarco, who was dropping back even before a long lap penalty stymied him further, the Frenchman - now out of the title battle - finishing 12th.

Maverick Vinales scored his first points for Aprilia in 13th, with Honda wild-card Stefan Bradl getting the better of stablemate Alex Marquez in 14th and 15th.

Elsewhere, it was a dismal day for Yamaha beyond Quartararo with Valentino Rossi down in 17th, ahead of series returnee Franco Morbidelli and Andrea Dovizioso 18th and 21st respectively.

Only three riders retired with Jorge Martin crashing out of fourth early on, the significance of which was matched by Alex Rins suffering yet another costly crash from fifth position, while Iker Lecuona also coming down. 

2021 San Marino MotoGP | Misano | Race RESULTS