With a thrilling last lap pass on Francesco Bagnaia, Enea Bastianini won the Aragon MotoGP Grand Prix and ended Bagnaia’s winning streak at four consecutive races. It was Bastianini’s fourth win of the season.

“I gained on [Bagnaia] on the last lap and it was possible to attack this time,” Bastianini said on NBC Sports’ coverage. “I was able to win this race and now we go onto Japan.”

Bastianini stalked Bagnaia for the entire race, On the final lap, Bagnaia was forced to balance his need for the 20 championship points that came with a second-place finish and his desire to become the third rider in MotoGP history to win five in a row. The need for points was even more important because the championship leader, Fabio Quartararo, suffered a Lap 1 crash and failed to earn any at all.

Bagnaia entered the race having shaved 61 points off Quartararo’s lead in the last four rounds. He took another 20-point bite in the Aragon Grand Prix and now trails by 10 with five rounds remaining.

“It’s been great,” Bagnaia said. “I did my maximum and on the final lap it looked like there was more traction. Enea did an incredible job all weekend. It was already known that he and Fabio were the fastest – and Fabio had an unlucky crash on the first lap.

“In any case I did my best and on the final lap I didn’t feel like I was able to overtake Enea because I was already taking too many risks the lap before, so 20 points were important and it’s okay.”

An extremely costly Sunday for @FabioQ20's world championship hopes! 💥

Luckily, Fabio escaped any serious injuries and he'll be back fighting once again next weekend! 🙌#AragonGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/texxuflvXE

The championship battle took a dramatic turn on Lap 1. Making his return to MotoGP competition after undergoing multiple surgeries on his arm, Marc Marquez was determined to be a factor.

In the first two turns of the race, Marquez blasted past seven riders into the lead pack. In Turn 3, his back tire slipped and Quartararo had nowhere to go. Quartararo clipped Marquez’s bike and he was pitched from his Yamaha, finishing last and earning no points.

“It was really unlucky,” Marquez said on NBC Sports’ coverage. “In Turn 3, I had a moment when I lost the rear and Fabio was really close like normal on the first lap and then I received the contact.”

Marquez sustained significant damage and was also forced to retire from the race.

At the front of the pack, Bagnaia was chasing the record book.

Leading early, he momentarily gave up the lead to Bastianini until that rider went too hard into a corner and pushed wide. Bagnaia pounced and retook the top spot, but was unable to shake the rider who will be his 2023 teammate at Ducati. Bastianini stalked Bagnaia for most of the race, but knew the pass had to be squeaky clean. Exiting a turn midway through the final lap, he completed the pass.

The two leaders crossed under the checkers 0.042 seconds apart as Bagnaia pulled up to the back tire of the winner.

With their 1-2 finish, Bastianini and Bagnaia clinched the manufacturers’ championship for Ducati.

The battle for the final podium position was also determined late in the race as Aleix Espargaro made an equally dramatic pass on Brad Binder with two to go. Jack Miller rounded out the top five as those three riders were separated by about eight-tenths of a second.

Riding with a broken finger, Espargaro closed his gap to 17 points and is also in title contention.

In Moto2, rookie Pedro Acosta scored his second win of the season over Aron Canet and points’ leader Augusto Fernandez.

Fernandez holds a slim seven-point advantage over Ai Ogura, who finished fourth.

Americans Joe Roberts and Cameron Beaubier finished ninth and 11th respectively.

The governing body for Formula One on Friday said IndyCar star Colton Herta will not be granted the Super License that the American needs to join the F1 grid next season.

“The FIA confirms that an enquiry was made via the appropriate channels that led to the FIA confirming that the driver Colton Herta does not have the required number of points to be granted an FIA Super Licence,” the FIA said in a statement.

The FIA decision was not a surprise.

Red Bull was interested in the 22-year-old Californian and considering giving Herta a seat at AlphaTauri, its junior team. AlphaTauri has already said that Pierre Gasly will return next season and Yuki Tsunoda received a contract extension earlier this week.

However, AlphaTauri has acknowledged it would release Gasly, who is apparently wanted at Alpine, but only if it had a compelling driver such as Herta to put in the car. F1 has not had an American on the grid since Alexander Rossi in 2015, but Herta did not particularly want the FIA to make an exception to the licensing system to get him a seat.

At issue is how the FIA rates IndyCar, a series it does not govern. The points it awards to IndyCar drivers rank somewhere between F2 and F3, the two junior feeder series into F1.

IndyCar drivers have criticized the system in defense of Herta and the intense, close racing of their own highly competitive series. Herta has won seven IndyCar races, is the youngest winner in series history and has four starts in the Indianapolis 500. He qualified on the front row in 2021 and finished a career-best eighth in 2020.

Rossi, who has spent the last four seasons as Herta’s teammate at Andretti Autosport, lashed out this week because “I’m so sick and tired of this back and forth” regarding the licensing.

“The whole premise of it was to keep people from buying their way into F1 and allowing talent to be the motivating factor,” Rossi wrote on social media. “That’s great. We all agree Colton has the talent and capability to be in F1. That’s also great and he should get that opportunity if it’s offered to him. Period.

“Motorsport still remains as the most high profile sport in the world where money can outweigh talent. What is disappointing and in my opinion, the fundamental problem, is that the sporting element so often took a backseat to the business side that here had to be a method put in place in order for certain teams to stop taking drivers solely based on their financial backing.”

Rossi added those decisions “whether out of greed or necessity, is what cost Colton the opportunity to make the decision for himself as to if he wanted to alter career paths and race in F1. Not points on a license.”

The system favors drivers who compete in FIA-sanctioned series. For example, Linus Lundqvist earned his Super License by winning the Indy Lights championship.

Lundqvist’s required points come via the 15 he earned for the Lights title, 10 points for finishing third in Lights last year and his 2020 victory in the FIA-governed Formula Regional Americas Championship, which earned him 18 points.

That gave the 23-year-old Swede a total of 43 points, three more than needed for the license.

Herta, meanwhile, ended the IndyCar season with 32 points. He can still earn a Super License by picking up one point for any free practice sessions he runs this year; McLaren holds his F1 rights and could put him in a car. Herta could also potentially run in an FIA-sanctioned winter series to pick up some points.

Michael Andretti, who has petitioned the FIA to expand its grid to add two cars for him to launch a team, said he never bothered to explore potential replacements for Herta on the IndyCar team because he was confident the Super License request would be rejected.

Andretti has been met by severe resistance from existing F1 teams and even F1 itself in his hope to add an 11th team. Andretti could still get on the grid by purchasing an existing team and he’d like to build his program around Herta, who is under contract in IndyCar to Andretti through 2023.