Marc Marquez turned a sweltering afternoon at Brno into another statement, chasing down his own Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia and then holding off a charging Ai Ogura to win the Czech Grand Prix and drag himself back into the world championship fight.
The factory Ducati rider crossed the line 0.421s clear of Ogura's Trackhouse Aprilia for his second win of the season and a record-extending fifth premier-class victory at Brno, adding to his wins at the circuit in 2013, 2017, 2019 and last year. Coming a week after his triumph in Hungary, it made it back-to-back Sundays for the eight-time world champion.
"A super important victory in a right-corner circuit," Marquez said.
"It's something special I was looking for, and you know that I never give up. In the last laps I was suffering a lot, the bike was there but I was empty. I tried to keep the pace, and I saw that Ogura was pushing but not enough to catch me. They were the longest six laps of the year."
Ogura, who started from pole and led the opening lap, produced the best weekend of his second MotoGP season — second place on Sunday to back up a runner-up finish in Saturday's sprint. He converted pole into the holeshot ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marquez, only for Bagnaia to take the lead on the second tour and set the early pace, opening a gap of seven-tenths by lap six.
But Bagnaia's challenge wilted in the heat. Marquez reeled him in, passed him at Turn 4 on lap 16 and immediately pulled clear; Ogura demoted Bagnaia a lap later at Turn 10 and set off after the leader, running out of road by the flag.
Bagnaia completed the podium, holding off Di Giannantonio by just 0.169s — the VR46 rider setting the fastest lap of the race on the final tour but finding nowhere to use it. Joan Mir took fifth for Honda, the only rider on the soft rear tyre, inheriting the place when KTM's Pedro Acosta dropped out late with an apparent tyre-pressure problem. Fermin Aldeguer, Raul Fernandez, Luca Marini, Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini rounded out the top ten.
The bigger story sat in the title table. Marquez arrived in fourth, 40 points behind leader Marco Bezzecchi — a gap that stood at 102 after May's Italian Grand Prix, before the Spaniard returned from shoulder and foot surgery. Across the past two rounds he has scored 69 points to Bezzecchi's seven.
Bezzecchi watched from the sidelines, banned for striking a marshal after his sprint crash, and the zero only deepened a wretched weekend for Aprilia. Team-mate Jorge Martin could manage only ninth after serving two long-lap penalties carried over from Hungary, leaving the two factory Aprilia riders split by a single eight points at the top of the standings.
Jack Miller's run of four straight points finishes ended with 16th on the Yamaha, 33.1s adrift, while Fabio Quartararo crashed out on the opening lap. The championship now heads to Assen for round ten on June 26-28, with Bezzecchi's lead suddenly looking fragile.
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