A post-race crash after landing a long, high-speed wheelie all wrong did nothing to dampen Jorge Martin’s joy over finding the top step of the podium again and leading the MotoGP World Championship. Martin chose the medium rear tire when the rest of the field went with the soft, and it proved to be the right choice. It was the 2024 MotoGP World Champion’s first Sprint race win since 2024, his first with Aprilia, and re-established him as the winningest Sprint racer ever with 17 victories, one more than Marc Marquez. More importantly, Martin said, it established that on three very different tracks he was there or thereabouts when the checkered flag flew. “We are back in the game,” Martin said.

Two-time MotoGP World Champion Francesco Bagnaia led most of the race, but a fading rear tire left him vulnerable to a last-lap lunge by Martin. Still, it was Bagnaia’s first podium of the season and it followed a fourth position in qualifying, one of his better starting positions in recent races. “We lost the lead with nine turns to go, but I did the maximum,” Bagnaia said.

The Sprint race was filled with crashes and drama. Seven-time MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez was balked on his flying qualifying lap and started from sixth, then crashed on the first lap of the Sprint, taking out polesitter Fabio Di Giannantonio. Having been on the ground twice in two days, Marquez used one word to describe his strategy for Sunday: “Survival,” he said.

Marquez will have to serve a long-lap penalty on Sunday, for the move on Di Giannantonio that took them both out. And former World Championship leader Marco Bezzecchi will get a two-position grid drop for interfering with Marquez’s qualifying lap.

The bigger penalty for Bezzecchi, however, was the points loss he suffered when he crashed out of second place. It was Bezzecchi’s second Sprint race crash at three events in 2026. And Pedro Acosta was demoted from third to eighth for a tire pressure infringement, promoting Enea Bastianini to third. On Friday, Bastianini had qualified 10th and made it straight into Q2 for the first time since last year’s Barcelona race–where he also finished on the podium.

Turn One claimed two victims, with Alex Rins crashing while running near the back of the field and Joan Mir crashing while fighting for a podium finish.

“No regrets,” Mir said. “I could not go to bed tonight knowing I did not try. I would do the same thing again.”

David Alonso took the Moto2 pole before he was hit with a tire pressure infringement penalty, dropping him to 17th on the grid; Barry Baltus was promoted to pole. In Moto3, no one could come close to the pole time Alvaro Carpe set, but in taking second, Casey O’Gorman became the first Irish rider to qualify on the front row of a Moto3 World Championship race.

Australian Archie Mcdonald ran away from the Harley-Davidson Bagger World Cup field to take the win in the series’ inaugural race by nearly 10 seconds. Eric Granado crashed while chasing, remounted and finished sixth. American Jake Lewis took second, Filippo Rovelli third, and Lewis’ Saddlemen Racing Development teammates Cory West and Travis Wyman finished fourth and fifth.

Nathan Gouker and Kensei Matsudaira split the MotoAmerica Talent Cup wins, with 14-year-old Jake Paige turning the fastest lap and setting a new class lap record in his first visit to the circuit.