Jorge Martin barged past title rival Francesco Bagnaia early on in the MotoGP sprint at Lusail on Saturday, before he swept on to win the race.
Bagnaia finished fifth, allowing the Spaniard to cut the gap in the standings to seven points with Sunday’s race and the season-ending sprint and race in Valencia to come.
But there was utter mayhem earlier in the day in Free Practice 2 as Aleix Espargaro and Franco Morbidelli clashed repeatedly in a battle for track position.
Morbidelli overtook Espargaro at Turn 5, before the latter did the same on Turn 6, causing the pair to collide.
A furious Espargaro then hit his opponent on the helmet – which earned him a six-place grid penalty for the main race and a 10,000 euro fine.
In a statement, the FIM said the Spaniard’s sanction was due to “aggressive behaviour” and for having hit the Italian.
Morbidelli said: “… he overtook me like crazy into Turn 6, almost crashing and almost making me crash.
“When I was trying to tell him to take it easy because, after he banged on me, he got angry and started to make bad gestures, as he always does.
“When I was telling him to take it easy, to chill out, he did what you all saw. It’s a huge disrespect action towards me.”
He continued: “We all think he has a problem. You’ve seen him over-reacting many many times in his career. He has much more episodes to be ashamed of than to be proud of.”
He added that the stewards ‘did nothing’.
“What he did today was such a big disrespect towards another competitor, in other sports it would have been treated in a much different way.”
Espargaro wrote on Instagram: “It has been a day to forget, first of all the incident with Morbidelli.
“I had a very bad reaction. He was walking in the middle of the track, he almost hit me twice, he was on the line, he didn’t let me enter again and I lost my temper with a totally disproportionate reaction.
“And for that I received a penalty. From my point of view [it is] too much, but I accept it because, obviously, the image is not good.”
Espargaro’s day got worse in the sprint, when he suffered a fractured fibula in a first-lap pileup.
On turn six, Miguel Oliveira crashed into Espargaro, bringing the pair down as well as Ducati’s Enea Bastianini – but Morbidelli got the last laugh over his rival Espargaro by taking evasive action and remaining upright.
Oliveira sustained a broken right scapula in the incident.
Spaniard Jorge Martin came out on top in the sprint race and now sits just seven points off the lead in the riders championship.
“I was thinking I had the potential to win but in a race you never know,” said Martin. “Tomorrow is the big day. Hopefully we can record more points.”
Title fight heats up in Moto GP battle | 00:56
Spaniard Martin of Ducati satellite team VR46 was followed home by Italians Fabio Di Giannantonio and Luca Marini.
Alex Marquez was fourth, as Ducatis occupied the top five places. Bagnaia, the reigning champion, and Martin started on the second row. They bumped at the first corner, but the Italian held off Martin, who then lost ground.
“I went wide and found myself behind Pecco and Marc Marquez,” said Martin after the race. “I had to work my way past them.”
On the second lap, Martin overtook Honda’s Marquez before attacking Bagnaia on the inside on the next lap, touching knees as he passed.
As the Spaniard roared away, Bagnaia lost momentum and was also passed by Di Giannantonio.
Martin chased down Alex Marquez and Marini with Di Giannantonio, who had made a slow start from the front row, in pursuit.
Bagnaia was never able to close the gap, eventually finishing 3.957 seconds behind the winner.
The result ensured that the title cannot be decided in Sunday’s main race.
“The best sprint I did so far this year,” said Martin. “To recover after a difficult first lap to overtake Pecco was a nice race.” Marco Bezzecchi finished 13th, and out of the points, but remained third in the standings although he is now 94 points behind Bagnaia.
