Spaniard Alex Rins (Suzuki) won the Australian Grand Prix in MotoGP on Sunday at the Phillip Island circuit, where Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), 3rd, recovered the championship lead from Frenchman Fabio Quartararo ( Yamaha), forced to retire.
Six-time Spanish MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez (Honda), second, completes the podium - his first of the season.
In the championship, Bagnaia takes the lead with 233 points, ahead of Quartararo (219 pts) two races from the end.
Quartararo knocked out in the 11th round
The Frenchman, leading the championship since April, had to retire after falling before the halfway mark.
Starting 5th on the grid, he was in 15th place before this fall, on the 11th lap.
The reigning world champion had already made a braking error shortly after the start, causing him to lose about fifteen positions.
"When I saw that Fabio had given up, I said to myself that a victory was possible but that if I was overtaken on the last lap, it did not matter", reacted Bagnaia, in front of the public authorized to invest. the track shortly after the arrival of the pilots.
Spaniard Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), still third in the championship, finished 9th and is now 27 points behind Bagnaia.
In Australia, Marc Marquez was the last to win in the premier category in Australia, before the 2020 and 2021 editions on the maritime route of Phillip Island (south) were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The next GP - and the penultimate of the season - will be held next weekend in Malaysia, which, like Australia, is returning to the MotoGP calendar after a three-year absence.
Bagnaia could afford his first MotoGP world championship title on the Sepang circuit.