Pecco takes his first victory since Austria and retakes the championship lead

Luca Marini started from pole position at a red hot Mandalika circuit in Indonesia, the Italian would have to take a long lap penalty for his incident with Marco Bezzecchi in India.

Sprint winner Jorge Martin started in sixth while his championship rival Francesco Bagnaia started in 13th. The front and rear tyre choices were very different across the grid, who would make the right choice?

The lights went out and it was Martin who took the holeshot into turn one ahead of Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo in third, Pecco Bagnaia had made up seven places into sixth.

On lap two Brad Binder out-braked himself into turn ten and took out Marini from fourth place and Pecco took the place.

Pecco was a man on a mission and passed Quartararo into turn 13, Aleix Espargarao who had a poor start followed Pecco with all of his passes and took the Frenchman in the following corners. Quartararo then ran wide at the first corner and Binder who was under investigation for his incident with Marini moved into fifth.

On lap five Martin had checked out he had a 1.4 second gap over Vinales with the Aprilia having the same gap over Pecco. Binder was given a long lap penalty for his incident with Marini and dropped down to tenth.

Marc Marquez was running in tenth place in the group for sixth and he lost the front at turn 13 on lap eight.

Jack Miller overtook Miguel Oliveira at turn 16 for sixth place on lap ten, the Portuguese rider tried to cut back but it wasn’t possible. Bezzecchi then passed the RNF Aprilia rider into turn one. Binder was then on the back of the RSGP machine.

On lap 11 Binder tried to pass Oliveira into turn two and hit the 2022 race winner and Miguel had no choice but to go straight on into the gravel and dropped out of the points.

Martin meanwhile had completely checked out and was leading by 2.4 seconds and set the fastest lap of the race setting a 1:31.0

Augusto Fernandez and Joan Mir crashed out of the race in sector three and four on lap 12, this meant that if you finished you scored points.

Jorge Martin crashed out of the race at turn 11 on lap 13! Vinales inherited the lead of the race with Pecco into second and was set to retake the championship lead. Johann Zarco crashed out at turn 11 also in a very similar crash to his teammate on lap 15.

Miller was in fourth place overtaking Espargaro whose soft tyre options were not working well. Quartararo was in third and closing in on Pecco and Vinales. Fabio Di Giannantonio was battling with Espargaro and Bezzecchi for fifth place with the Italian passing Espargaro into turn ten for fifth.

With ten laps to go Pecco was 0.5 seconds behind Vinales, Pecco was running the hard front compared to Maverick with the medium, would that be the difference?

Di Giannantonio passed Miller for fourth place and immediately gapped the Red Bull KTM rider. On lap 20 Pecco passed Vinales into turn ten to take the lead of the race. Quartararo closed in by one second on that very lap and he was the danger man for the two in front.

With three laps to go, the top three were separated by less than a second . On the last lap Pecco had extended the gap to one second, Quartararo was all over the back of the Aprilia but couldn’t make a move.

Pecco was going really defensive in the final sector and Vinales closed up to his rear tyre but wasn’t able to pull a last corner overtake. Pecco Bagnaia returned to victory and won the Indonesian Grand Prix and was back in the championship lead.

Vinales was second with Quartararo in third, Di Giannantonio took his best finish in fourth and Bezzecchi took fifth taking Binder on the last lap. Miller finished in seventh, Enea Bastianini in eighth, Alex Rins on his return finished ninth with Aleix Esparagaro in tenth.

Pecco leads the championship over Martin by 18 points with five rounds to go.

Featured Image: Ducati Corse.