Pedro Acosta finally scored his overdue first MotoGP grand prix victory - and took KTM's first in four years - at the Red Bull Ring.
Jorge Martin could not hold off the charging Acosta for the race win, but second place with Marc Marquez only fifth rebuilds Martin's championship lead to 12 points.
Acosta blew a certain sprint win by crashing from the lead with three laps to go on Saturday, and then fell from third to fifth on the first lap of the grand prix.
But the pace Acosta had shown from the start of the weekend was still there and he took little time to hack his way through to the front and make up for that error by keeping the Aprilias at bay for a commanding victory.
He then celebrated with a low-speed deliberate replica of the Saturday crash at the same point on his slowing-down.
Prior to this result, Acosta's only MotoGP race win had been in the season-opening sprint in Thailand. He had been eager to actually win a grand prix for KTM before leaving for Ducati next year, and doing so at his team's home event was the ideal outcome.
Marquez was never a factor at the front this time. He seemed to lack pace in the middle phase of the race and was steadily edged back to seventh before regaining a couple of positions to finish a distant fifth.
Aprilia filled positions two to four. Marco Bezzecchi battled Martin for the lead at first and led for a spell, and came back at his team-mate in the closing stages too, but Martin had little trouble maintaining second, with Trackhouse's returnee Ai Ogura following them home.
Results
1 Pedro Acosta (KTM)
2 Jorge Martin (Aprilia) +1.017s
3 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) +1.209s
4 Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) +2.139s
5 Marc Marquez (Ducati) +7.339s
6 Brad Binder (KTM) +8.720s
7 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) +9.686s
8 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) +9.786s
9 Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) +15.290s
10 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) +16.687s
11 Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM) +17.061s
12 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) +21.361s
13 Taka Nakagami (Honda) +21.453s
14 Luca Marini (Honda) +22.812s
15 Diogo Moreira (LCR Honda) +25.370s
16 Pol Espargaro (Tech3 KTM) +25.569s
17 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) +30.561s
18 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) +34.621s
19 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +34.834s
20 Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pramac Yamaha) +47.145s
21 Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha) +1m07.951s
DNF Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati)
from The Race https://ift.tt/KoUPrjH
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