Marc Márquez and the Ducati Lenovo Team take second place in the Austrian Sprint. Francesco Bagnaia scores points in sixth

  The Ducati Lenovo Team completed the fifteenth Sprint of the season at the Austrian Ring. Marc Márquez took second place at the end of the 14-lap encounter, whilst Francesco Bagnaia was sixth at the flag.

Márquez retained second place at the start and briefly took the lead at the first chicane before being overtaken by Acosta. After dropping down to third at the start of lap eight, Marc found himself back in second place with three laps remaining and tried to re-enter the battle for the win until the end. Bagnaia, seventh on the grid after going through Q1, finished with an encouraging sixth place.

The Ducati Lenovo Team will be back in action tomorrow at 9:40 local time (GMT +2) for the warm-up, which will be followed by the 28-lap Grand Prix of Austria, to be contested from 14:00.

Marc Márquez (#93 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 2nd
“Today we achieved the main goal, which was to finish right behind Jorge (Martín) with no other rider in between. The first two laps were intense, then I simply kept my pace and scored the best possible result, as we are struggling a bit here. We need to keep working in order to improve in some specific areas of the track and, if we manage to do so, everything will become a whole lot simpler. Tomorrow's race will be a long one and we'll have to be careful with tyre wear.”

Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 6th
“We're doing a good job. Today we improved in the time attack, while in the Sprint we mainly worked towards tomorrow's race by choosing the medium tire, as we know how important it'll be to manage tire wear. I think it was the correct decision. It's true that we struggled in the opening laps, but then the pace wasn't so bad. The feeling has improved and now I hope we can make another step forward – with regards to grip and traction on corner exit – ahead of tomorrow.”