A cold and cloudy day saw the riders took the racetrack for the 2022 Portuguese GP, on the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. A cirtcuit well know for its numerous quantity of slopes, that usually means a challenge for the participant riders.

Lights were off and race was underway with a big start from the 2020 world champion Joan Mit, followed by the 2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo at 2nd, meanwhile Jack Miller, Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco closed the top 5 respectively.

With the first laps passed by, it didn’t take too much for Fabio Quartararo to make a move on the Suzuki of Joan Mir and take the lead of the race, Yamaha was looking as the strongest bike for the first time on a race weekend, as Quartararo slowly developed a gap between Mir and recently 3rd place, Johann Zarco, who overtook both Alex Marquez and Jack Miller. Jorge Martin was the first rider to retire from the race after a crash on the last turn.

As half of the race done, it was clear that nobody was going to catch Quartararo on track and the big battle was for the 2nd place between Zarco, Mir and Miller, as the 3 riders showed similar lap times with less than 8 laps to go. It eventually ended wrong for both Jack Miller and Joan Mir, ad the Aussie lost control of the bike and took the Spaniard as a unavoidable incident.

As Fabio Quartararo increases the gap on the lead, several battles were happening on the middle of the standings. As Aleix Espargaro, Alex Rins, Miguel Oliveira and both Marquez brothers were on a intense dispute for 5th place. Some other crashes happened on consecutive laps, first Enea Bastianini and then Takaaki Nakagami, who did actually got up and was able to continue.

With the race on the final lap, the only battle inside the top 10 left was for 6th between the Marquez brothers, with Marc besting his brother Alex at the end. Fabio Quartararo didn’t have any problems to take his first win of the season and make a triumphant return to the championship contentio , Johann Zarco ends with a strong 2nd place and Aleix Espargaro closes another great podium for Aprillia. With a honorable mention for Alex Rins, whot crosses the line 4th after a huge comeback after starting 23th on the grid. Francesco Bagnaia also deserve some recognizion, with also a strong comeback from 24th to 8th place.

Race Results:

1. Fabio Quartararo /// 2. Johann Zarco /// 3. Aleix Espargaro
4. Alex Rins /// 5. Miguel Oliveira /// 6. Marc Marquez
7. Alex Marquez /// 8. Francesco Bagnaia /// 9. Pol Espargaro
10. Maverick Viñales /// 11. Andrea Dovizioso /// 12. Luca Marini
13. Franco Morbidelli /// 14. Remy Gardner /// 15. Marco Bezzecchi
16. Takaaki Nakagami /// 17. Darryl Binder

DNF: Lorenzo Savadori, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Jack Miller, Brad Binder, Enea Bastianini, Jorge Martin

Fabio Quartararo returns to contention with a dominant win that put him tied with Alex Rins at the lead of the championship standing with 69 points, followed closely by Aleix Espargaro with 66 and Enea Bastianini with 61. There’s still a lot of calendar left and many variables could happend as the seasson passes by, next week is the first time in Spain, at Jerez de la frontera.