Jorge Martin came on top in a three-way battle with Miguel Oliveira and Francesco Bagnaia to win the sprint race for the German Grand Prix and extend his lead in the MotoGP standings.
After a tight early fight between the trio that saw all three briefly taking the lead, Martin was able to assert his pace and win by 0.676s from Oliveira, with Bagnaia completing the podium spots.
At the start of the race, Martin got away well from pole position on his Pramac Ducati but came under pressure from Trackhouse rival Oliveira, before Bagnaia came through from fifth on the grid to stick the factory GP24 up the inside and take the lead into Turn 2.
However, Martin remained close to the leading duo for the remainder of the lap and repassed Oliveira going into Turn 1 at the start of the following tour, before barging past Bagnaia at Turn 8 to put himself back in the front.
Oliveira also took advantage of the situation to demote Bagnaia to third into the final corner, putting himself between the two championship contenders.
Martin initially failed to shake off Oliveira and Bagnaia as the trio continued to run head-to-toe at the Sachsenring, but by lap 12 he was finally a second clear of the chasing duo, who were joined by Enea Bastianini on the second works Ducati.
Although the gap between Martin and the rest came down in the final part of the sprint, he was never in a serious threat as he took the chequered flag in first position to claim his first sprint win since Le Mans.
Oliveira crossed the finish line in second to secure a maiden podium for the new Trackhouse operation, while Bagnaia led team-mate Bastianini and saw his deficit to Martin grow back up to 15 points.
Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli didn’t have the pace to remain with the lead group but he did enough to score fifth ahead of Gresini ace Marc Marquez, who inched just 0.003s clear of Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales in the dash to the finish line to take sixth.
Both had qualified out of position, with Vinales only lining up eighth after a frightening crash in qualifying and Marquez — who himself was not at his 100% after a fall in practice — starting 13th after being impeded by Honda wildcard Stefan Bradl in Q1.
Factory KTM rider Brad Binder was the top representative for the Pierer Mobility Group in eighth after Tech3 GasGas rookie Pedro Acosta dropped to the back with an unspecified issue with just three laps to run.
The final point in the sprint went to Alex Marquez on the second Gresini Ducati, while the top 10 was rounded out by VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi.
Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez, who had qualified on the front row alongside polesitter Martin and team-mate Oliveira, struggled for pace on his year-old RS-GP and slipped to 14th at the chequered flag, behind KTM’s Jack Miller, VR46 rider Fabio di Giannantonio and the top Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo.
Honda’s top finisher was factory rider Luca Marini in 15th.