The champion Quartararo is reborn in Portimao and takes the lead

‘El Diablo’, who continues to complain about the scarce or lesser power of his Yamaha’s engine, has starred today, after a more than perfect training session prior to the race, which had marked this circuit as the place, not only to land in champion plan in Europe, but to position himself, thanks to the fall of ‘The Beast’, until now the leader, as the new boss of the championship tied (69 points) with the Catalan Àlex Rins (Suzuki), who finished fourth after a brutal comeback , from 23rd to 4th place.

The race, as far as the head is concerned, has had no color. From the first two laps, both Quartararo and the Mallorcan Joan Mir (Suzuki) took command, always in a tough fight with the Ducati of Johann Zarco, who started from pole position, as well as that of the Australian Jack Miller, who he feels slighted by the signing of Borgo Panigale, who has publicly said that he does want him for the next two years, although, perhaps, not in his official team where they could place Jorge Martín, who crashed today, or Bastianini.

Quartararo, in fact, has not seen his leadership and his first win of the year in danger at any time, while the other two steps of the podium had a lot of candidates, as they have had, throughout the 25 laps, the rest of pursuers as Àlex Márquez (Honda), Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia), Oliveira (KTM), Àlex Rins (Suzuki), Marc Márquez (Honda), Pol Espargaró (Honda) and Brad Binder (KTM) fought desperately for the fifth places to 11th place in the grand prize.

But everything changed, suddenly, when Miller, always aggressive perhaps to please his factory, forced an impossible interior, seven laps from the end, he could not control his ‘Desmosedici’ when it was inside the curve, in its arc, and He took Mir ahead, who was (is) a firm candidate for the title and today he has been left without the 16 points of the third place in the ‘drawer’ that he has deserved throughout the Grand Prix weekend.

That shifted the fight for silver and bronze to the small group made up of Zarco, Aleix Espargaró and Àlex Rins (other candidates for the title), Oliveira and even the Márquez brothers, Àlex and Marc. Finally, and despite the enormous career of the oldest of the Espargaró, third in the World Championship just three points behind the Quartararo-Rins tandem, second place went to Zarco, who resisted the push, the almost suicidal last turns, of Aleix.

And what about the fight, finally, starring the Márquez brothers, finally won by Marc, who beat Àlex by 20 thousandths of a second. The equality shown by the Márquez family was reflected, of course, in the classification of this grand prix, which had six different bikes in the top six positions in the race: Yamaha, Ducati, Aprilia, Suzuki, KTM and Honda.

“You never have to throw in the towel, I learned that as soon as I got to MotoGP & rdquor ;, commented Quartararo, in the ‘corralito’, wrapped in the French flag, before the microphone of Dorna TV. “I have been very, very, well in the 20 minutes of training before the race, already with the track completely dry and I thought that if I made a good start, as it has been, and I escaped, then I did not want trouble behind , I could maintain a good pace, the same, really, that I had in Argentina and Austin, but here there is more grip and, above all, the straight is bearable. I was able to hammer through the 25 laps and get my first win this year. I repeat, you should never throw in the towel & rdquor ;.