Marc Marquez reclaimed the lead of the world championship as he led home brother Alex and Fermin Aldeguer in a Ducati 1-2-3 in the sprint at Le Mans on Saturday.
The result maintains Marc’s perfect winning record in 2025 sprints and establishes a new record for most consecutive sprint victories: six.
Home favourite Fabio Quartararo led almost half of the race but did not have the pace to hold off the three Ducatis.
Starting from pole position, Quartararo had an average getaway and Marc Marquez initially jumped ahead. But the factory Ducati then ran wide at the sweeping right-hander leading into Dunlop, allowing the Yamaha to grab a comfortable early lead over Marc, Alex, Francesco Bagnaia and Aldeguer.
The crowd dared to dream as Quartararo crossed the line with an advantage of around three-quarters of a second at the end of lap one – but this was as big as his lead would get.
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
At Dunlop on lap two, Bagnaia lost his factory Ducati under braking and slid out of the race. He will need a special Sunday to make up for a miserable Saturday, which began with him qualifying only sixth.
Up at the front, it looked like a matter of time before Marc breezed past Quartararo. His first attempt came at Dunlop on lap six. Fabio briefly fought back, but Marc was finally able to seal the deal at Garage Vert. From there the Spaniard pulled away for another trademark sprint victory.
Quartararo was visibly beginning to struggle in the second half of the race. He thus could do nothing about losing second to Alex Marquez on lap eight. Two laps later, Aldeguer took him for third. The rookie had to fight Quartararo for it, but gave as good as he got in a battle that began at Dunlop and was only finally settled two corners later at Musee.
Aldeguer kept it steady for the remaining laps to claim his first podium of any description in MotoGP.
Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) ran just behind Aldeguer early on before a mistake on lap three put him out of contention. That made the fight for fifth behind Quartararo an all-KTM one, with Maverick Vinales (Tech3) initially leading the fast-starting factory bikes of Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder.
After Binder fell on lap four, however, the KTM scrap became a duel. Acosta ran most of the race ahead of Vinales, who spent much of it desperately looking for a way by. In the end, fifth place fell into his lap when Acosta made a mistake on the final lap and dropped all the way down to 19th at the flag.
Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) gave the French fans a scrap of joy by coming through from 11th on the grid to claim a solid sixth place.
Fabio di Giannantonio was another to recover from a tough morning, coming through from 17th on the grid to finish seventh.
The final two points-paying positions went to the factory Yamaha of Alex Rins and the factory Honda of Joan Mir.
French Grand Prix – Sprint race results
Photos from French GP – Sprint
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