Ending a decade-long drought at the Buddh International Circuit (BIC), the 5km race track in Greater Noida witnessed high decibel action with the inaugural MotoGP India Grand Prix 2023 setting the buzz and living up to the billing with Italian Marco Bezzecchi sprinting to the top of the podium on Sunday.

Prima Pramac Racing rider Jorge Martin of Spain finished second and France’s Fabio Quartararo of Yamaha became the third to cross the finish line.

At fourth, KTM’s Brad Binder made a strong recovery after a poor qualifying session to beat the top Honda of Joan Mir. Johann Zarco was sixth aboard the second Pramac Ducati, while Franco Morbidelli leapt from 16th to 10th in the opening two laps before crossing the chequered flag in seventh place.

Maverick Vinales finished eighth while Honda’s Marc Marquez took the chequered flag in ninth after an impressive recovery ride, having dropped to 16th after a crash on lap 6. The top 10 was rounded off by Raul Fernandez on the RNF Aprilia.

Representing the Mooney VR46 Racing team, Bezzecchi completed the race in 36:59:15 minutes. While the gap between him and Martin was 8.649 seconds. Quartararo, representing Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGp was 8.855 seconds behind the leader.

Bezzecchi, the fastest rider in Saturday’s sprint, wasted no time in taking the lead as he dove to the inside of reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia of Ducati at the final corner. Bagnaia’s attempts of gaining the lead did not work as Bezzecchi accelerated ahead to widen the gap with the series leader.

Martin, who ran wide, allowing Bagnaia and Bezzechi to get ahead of him initially, managed to make his way through which put Bagnaia under pressure from Honda’s Marc Marquez. However, the pressure then eased as Marquez lost the front-end of his Honda at turn one on lap six.

Martin, however, continued pushing his GP23 to the limit to shed time to race leader Bezzecchi, as the Italian was 3.8 seconds clear on lap 10. Bagnaia, meanwhile, crashed completely on his own going into Turn 4, almost allowing Martin an easy second but the Spanish rider had to fight hard to secure the runner-up spot, after losing time tightening up his overalls.

By then, Fabio Quartararo made good ground to bring himself into contention and engaged in a thrilling final lap scrap that saw both going neck and neck until the Spaniard narrowly held his nerves to finish second in the 21-lap race.