This time the miracle was not for Márquez but for Quartararo, the Frenchman won his second consecutive race in Portugal and leads the MotoGP World Championship.
This time there was no miracle and Marc Marquez in his return to MotoGP after nine months of absence had to settle for only 7th place.
A race in which he never had a real chance to fight for the victory and was limited to ride without problems in the same position in which he had qualified (or rather one position behind).
After the victory achieved in the Grand Prix of Doha the Frenchman (who seems to be motivated by the presence of the Catalan as it happened during 2019) gets his second victory of the season and moves to the top of the overall standings.
The Italian Francesco Bagnaia recovers positions from the fourth row (ninth position at the start) and places behind Quartararo on the podium. Third is the current Spanish champion Joan Mir.
The overall classification sees Fabio Quartaro escape with 61 points followed by Francesco Bagnaia and Maverick Viñales with 46 and 41 points respectively.
Close behind them Johan Zarco (40) and Joan Mir (38). Mar Márquez scored his first nine points in the World Riders' Championship.
Valentino Rossi continues his negative streak and falls on lap 15. Rins and Zarco, who were on the podium at the time, also fall.
The race
Quartararo does not start well but begins to recover little by little making an intelligent race, knowing that he has a good bike with a perfect adaptation to the circuit of Portimao.
In the final part of the race, he stretches on his followers and wins the race with tranquility.
Meanwhile, behind him, a little bit of everything happens. Rins and Zarco make a great race until they fall. Mir does his best showing that the 2020 title was more a consequence of a regularity and constancy that allowed him to score points in almost every race even if he won very few.
The Quartaro of this season resembles the Frenchman who at the end of 2019 disputed inch by inch the races to Marc Marquez, uncontested phenomenon until that moment of MotoGP and multi-champion.
Valentino Rossi after a very bad start recovered positions quite consistently but when he was in 12th place he fell.
If last year was a bad year for Valentino, the 2021 doesn't seem to be any different. 19th in the overall standings with only four points gained in the first race.
In the last two races he didn't even make it into the points standings. It is difficult to find in the statistics of the Italian phenomenon such a poor year of results.
MotoGP World Standing 2021.
It might be the year of Quartararo, he has talent, let’s see if he has nerves of a champion now :)
It may be that in 2021 Quartararo has matured enough. He had everything to win 2020 with the absence of Marquez.