Marc Marquez won a seventh consecutive Grand Prix for the first time in 11 years by dominating the Hungarian Grand Prix, the six-time MotoGP champion extending his championship lead to 175 points from pole position on Sunday.
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The Ducati rider completed the sprint race/Grand Prix double for the seventh straight event, and was last beaten when he finished third in the British Grand Prix in late May.
Marquez finished 4.314 seconds ahead of KTM’s Pedro Acosta, who came through from seventh on the grid, while Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi finished third for a third podium in succession for the first time in his MotoGP career.
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The Spaniard’s victory was his 10th Grand Prix win of the year and 23rd in 28 starts this season across sprints and Grands Prix, marking the third time in his career Marquez has won 10 or more Grands Prix in a season along with 2014 and 2019, his most recent world title.
Marquez’s lead in the title chase swelled when his nearest title rival, younger brother Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) started a season-worst 14th after a three-place penalty for impeding in Friday practice, and finished 14th after remounting following a lap two crash at the first corner, scoring just two points.
After Saturday’s sprint race at the new Balaton Park circuit got off to a chaotic start with first-lap crashes for Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, Honda’s Johann Zarco and KTM’s Enea Bastianini, Sunday’s Grand Prix had its own heart-in-mouth moment when Marquez ran into the back of Bezzecchi in the second turn of the first lap, both riders continuing in an incident that dropped Marquez to third place behind Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli.
Marquez, the only front-runner to elect to use the medium-compound rear Michelin tyre while his primary rivals used the soft rear, bided his time before passing Morbidelli on lap five and then Bezzecchi on lap 11 of the 26-lap race, setting the race’s fastest lap on lap 12 (1min 37.699secs) and immediately pulling a 1.4sec gap.
“On that first corner when I saw that Marco was inside, I release the brakes and go wide because I don’t want to have any issue in that first corner, but then in the second [turn] I expect he will do more corner speed and I touch him … luckily for both of us I was able to save the crash and he just continued his way,” Marquez said.
“From that point the race changed a bit, I was patient those first laps, but then when I saw that the soft rear tyre started to drop, with the medium [rear tyre] I start to attack and then I had a super nice rhythm. I was flowing on the track.”
Acosta surged past Bezzecchi for second place on lap 16 at the first corner, but was never closer than 2.7secs to Marquez for the remaining laps as Bezzecchi cruised to third ahead of Aprilia teammate Jorge Martin, the reigning world champion storming through from 16th on the grid to finish fourth for his best result of an injury-interrupted season.
Australia’s Jack Miller, from 14th on the grid, failed to finish after two crashes on his Yamaha after running in 11th place in the early stages.
Miller crashed at turn one on lap six but was able to remount and rejoin the race, but a second crash on gravel that had been swept onto the circuit by other riders running wide at turn 11 brought an end to his race on lap 17.
Round 15 of the 22-round MotoGP season will take place at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona from September 5-7.