Indonesia MotoGP: KTM's Oliveira takes impressive wet-weather win

Drama permeated the run-up to MotoGP’s first Indonesian GP in 25 years, with the big news being Marc Marquez’s violent warm-up crash ruling him out of the race. 

The Honda rider suffered a concussion in a horrifying highside in the latter stages of warm-up on Sunday morning and was declared unfit having gone to hospital for precautionary checks.  

The MotoGP race was then shortened from 27 laps to 20 over safety fears about the condition of the circuit in the extreme heat, before heavy rain led to a delay of an hour and 15 minutes to proceedings. 

Declared a wet race, the entire field opted for Michelin’s medium front and rear rain tyres. 

Poleman Fabio Quartararo nailed his launch off the line to grab the holeshot on his factory Yamaha, with Oliveira slotting into second ahead of Ducati’s Jack Miller and a fast-starting Alex Rins on the Suzuki.  

Miller overhauled Quartararo on the run over the line to start lap two as the Yamaha rider seemingly made a mistake exiting the final corner – something he’d do on the following tour, which dropped him out of the podium places to fifth.  

Oliveira also quickly dispatched of Quartararo to give Miller chase, as the leading duo immediately moved over a second clear of the pack behind.  

The KTM rider’s searing pace would prove too much for Miller and the latter would succumb to his advances at Turn 12 on lap five.  

Oliveira would charge off into the distance, opening up a lead of over four seconds to Miller, who started to fade in the closing stages.  

Miller came under attack from Pramac’s Johann Zarco, Rins and Quartararo – though a mistake for Rins would drop him off the podium battle.  

Quartararo capitalised on a battling Zarco and Miller to get ahead of the Pramac rider at Turn 1 on lap 16.  

At Turn 12 Quartararo moved ahead of Miller to take over second, with the Yamaha rider knocking Oliveira’s lead down to 2.8s seconds as they raced onto the final lap.  

But Oliveira kept his lead above two seconds to claim his fourth win in MotoGP as Quartararo took his best-ever wet-weather result in the premier class in second.  

Pramac’s Zarco completed the podium ahead of factory team counterpart Miller, with Rins heading Suzuki teammate Joan Mir – who rose from 17th on the grid to salvage his difficult Indonesia weekend.  

Franco Morbidelli was seventh on the second of the factory Yamahas as Brad Binder prevailed in a wild battle for eighth on his KTM.  

Binder beat Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and his RNF Racing Yamaha-mounted brother Darryn Binder, while Enea Bastianini holds onto a slender two-point championship lead after a difficult race in 11th for the Gresini rider.  

Pol Espargaro could only manage 12th on the sole-remaining Repsol Honda, with Alex Marquez (LCR Honda), VR46 Ducati rider Luca Marini and Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia – who was lucky to stay mounted after nearly crashing at Turn 1 early on – rounding out the points paying positions to 15th. 

Missing out on points was Maverick Vinales on his Aprilia, with Tech 3 rookie Raul Fernandez heading Gresini’s Fabio Di Giannantono, LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami, Marco Bezzecchi (VR46) and Tech3’s Remy Gardner.  

Jorge Martin crashed out at Turn 1 on lap eight when he hit some standing water, while RNF’s Andrea Dovizioso was forced out with a mechanical problem.  

MotoGP Indonesian GP - Race results:

Cla	#	Rider		Bike	Gap
1	88	Miguel Oliveira		KTM
2	20	Fabio Quartararo		Yamaha	2.205
3	5	Johann Zarco		Ducati	3.158
4	43	Jack Miller		Ducati	5.663
5	42	Alex Rins		Suzuki	7.044
6	36	Joan Mir		Suzuki	7.832
7	21	Franco Morbidelli		Yamaha	21.115
8	33	Brad Binder		KTM	32.413
9	41	Aleix Espargaro		Aprilia	32.586
10	40	Darryn Binder		Yamaha	32.901
11	23	Enea Bastianini		Ducati	33.116
12	44	Pol Espargaro		Honda	33.599
13	73	Alex Marquez		Honda	33.735
14	10	Luca Marini		Ducati	34.991
15	63	Francesco Bagnaia		Ducati	35.763
16	12	Maverick Viñales		Aprilia	37.397
17	25	Raúl Fernández		KTM	41.975
18	49	Fabio Di Giannantonio		Ducati	47.915
19	30	Takaaki Nakagami		Honda	49.471
20	72	Marco Bezzecchi		Ducati	49.473
21	87	Remy Gardner		KTM	55.964
	89	Jorge Martin		Ducati
	4	Andrea Dovizioso		Yamaha
View full results