BARCELONA: Gresini Racing’s Alex Marquez ended his brother Marc’s remarkable unbeaten run by winning their home Catalan Grand Prix on Sunday, redeeming himself after crashing out of the lead in Saturday’s sprint for just his second career race victory.

Marc had won the last 15 sprints and races and had he won Sunday’s race would have had the opportunity to clinch a seventh title on Ducati’s home turf at next weekend’s San Marino Grand Prix.

But Alex had other plans as he tore up the script and, with seven rounds to go, Marc’s championship lead was cut to 182 points.

Tech3’s Enea Bastianini came third to clinch his first podium with the team, while KTM’s Pedro Acosta and Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo rounded out the top five.

Alex had clinched his first pole since April 2023 but it was sprint winner Marc who had the perfect launch off the line to lead into turn one before preventing his brother from overtaking on the next turn, with Acosta slotting into third.

But Alex was in no mood to finish behind Marc yet again this season and the Gresini Racing rider step­ped out of his brother’s shadow to pounce on lap four, finding an opening on turn one to retake the lead.

Marc had warned all weekend that the younger Marquez sibling had the best pace and that was evident from the time sheets as Alex set the fastest lap.

Behind them, Bastianini used Acosta’s slipstream to finally make his way past the younger KTM rider on lap 11 to move up to third, earning a wide grin from former F1 team principal and Tech3’s future CEO Guenther Steiner .

As the top three streaked away, Acosta was falling behind as his strategy quickly backfired. But in the end, it was a battle between the Marquez brothers, with Bastianini saying it was impossible for him to catch them.

Marc was also visibly easing off, with the gap steadily increasing in the final laps as the elder brother knew he had been thoroughly beaten by a determined Alex.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025