Pecco Bagnaia leads the MotoGP Championship standings as he finishes third at Phillip Island.

Pecco Bagnaia is the new MotoGP Championship leader. As he closed the Australian GP in third place, held this afternoon at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, the Ducati Lenovo Team rider succeeded in his comeback, accomplishing a feat never achieved in the top class. Bagnaia was 91 points behind after the German GP at Sachsenring, and now, after eight races, he is the new leader of the Championship with a 14-point lead over Quartararo.

As he was starting from third on the grid, Pecco took the lead of the race on lap 15 and remained there until the last lap, when Marquez and Rins passed him, the latter today's GP winner. With today's third place, Bagnaia brings to nine the number of podiums obtained this season. For Jack Miller, however, the home race had an unfortunate ending. 

Starting from eighth on the grid, the Australian rider had managed to climb back up to the group fighting third, but on lap nine, while sitting in fifth place, Alex Marquez bumped into his bike, and they both crashed. The accident left no physical consequences for Miller, who was forced to retire. Despite that, he remains fifth in the overall standings, 54 points behind his teammate.

Francesco Bagnaia's words at the end of the race.

"I am satisfied with the third place today, but the most important thing is that we are finally first in the Championship. I only regret not being able to win because I did my best. In the first laps, I tried to manage the tyre consumption well, but towards the end, I didn't have the same pace anymore, and I was still struggling with the front. When I saw that Quartararo was OUT, I changed my approach and just tried to have a smart race, avoiding unnecessary risks, to try to take advantage of the situation. The next GP will be in Malaysia, a track where we are usually fast, so there are all the conditions to do well there."