Marc Márquez extended his dominant run in the sprint format with another win at the Balaton Park Circuit in Hungary, taking the 13-lap MotoGP Tissot Sprint by 2.095 seconds aboard his Ducati Lenovo Team Desmosedici GP25 on Michelin tires. Second place went to Fabio Di Giannantonio, with his VR46 Racing teammate Franco Morbidelli completing the podium in third.
Luca Marini finished fourth on the Honda HRC Castrol RC213V, while Fermín Aldeguer claimed fifth on the BK8 Gresini Ducati GP24. Marc Márquez now leads the championship with 430 points, 152 ahead of Alex Marquez on 278, with Francesco Bagnaia in third on 221.
The race was marked by incidents at Turn 1, where Fabio Quartararo collided with Enea Bastianini after a late braking maneuver, taking Quartararo out of the sprint and affecting others such as Marco Bezzecchi. Bastianini was also involved in a separate incident at Turn 9 with Johann Zarco, leaving both riders down. Post-race penalties were handed to Quartararo (Long Lap penalty on his first offence) and Bastianini (Double Long Lap penalty for his second offence).
Mid-race, on Lap 5, Di Giannantonio was about 1.1 seconds behind Márquez, while Morbidelli trailed his teammate by a little over a second. On Lap 6, Pedro Acosta crashed at Turn 11 while attempting to pass Jorge Martin for P10, signaling a tough Saturday for the Friday pacesetter in Hungary.
As the Sprint concluded, Márquez held firm at the front, with Di Giannantonio and Morbidelli securing VR46’s double podium. Marini defended P4 ahead of Aldeguer, who remained in fifth, while Alex Marquez finished eighth ahead of the reigning World Champion Martin in ninth, who will start higher on the grid tomorrow due to a separate penalty in store for the main event.
With 26 laps to go in the main Grand Prix on Sunday, the question remains: can anyone derail Márquez’s momentum as the title race heads into Balaton’s feature race? The weekend underscores Márquez’s continuing sprint supremacy, VR46’s strong weekend, and the potential ripple effects of Saturday penalties on Sunday’s race.