Andrea Dovizioso passed MotoGP champion Marc Marquez at the last corner to win the Austrian Grand Prix for Ducati on Sunday and trim the Spaniard’s overall Championship lead to 58 points.
The pair had been in a duel throughout the race at Spielberg’s Red Bull Ring, with the Italian making a seemingly decisive move with nine laps to go after running in the Spaniard’s slipstream.
Repsol Honda’s Marquez, starting from a record 59th MotoGP pole, went back in front with three laps remaining but Dovizioso muscled through at the last corner of the race and made the move stick.
“It was the last corner, I had to try,” Dovizioso said amid wild celebrations on the pitwall as he charged across the finish.
“I did something crazy and sometimes it works.”
It meant Dovizioso denied Marquez his first victory in Austria, the only track on this year’s calendar where he has yet to win a race.
Chasing his sixth championship, Marquez leads with 230 points in the overall standings after 11 of 19 races.
Marquez said he had chosen the wrong rear tyre and was sliding a lot on it.
Dovizioso is second with 172 and his Ducati teammate Danilo Petrucci, who finished ninth, is third with 136.
Australia’s Jack Miller failed to finish after sliding out of the race on turn nine of the eighth lap and lies seventh on the overall standings.
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo finished more than six seconds behind in third, and seven-time former world champion Valentino Rossi was fourth for his best result since coming runner-up at the GP of the Americas in April.