Both Quartararo and Yamaha factory colleague Maverick Vinales were swallowed by the line, but the Frenchman worked his way up from ninth on the first lap to claim his first win since the Catalan GP last September.
Martin repeated his monster start at the Qatar GP and took the lead from Pramac teammate Johann Zarco, while last Sunday’s race winner, Maverick Vinales, dropped to ninth place.
Alex Rins jumped from eighth to fifth on the first lap and quickly worked his way up to the podium, while Miguel Oliveira on his KTM took the top five from twelfth place.
Joan Mir followed Rins’ attack from ninth place, the world champion gave Fabio Quartararo an aggressive pass in turn 6 on the second tour for the sixth time.
At the front, Martin held Zarco in check, while Rins and the Frenchman took second place several times – the Suzuki couldn’t stop the Ducati from blasting it down the straight.
Rins was lucky enough to stay mounted when he pocketed the front of his Suzuki on lap 12 at Turn 9, though he somehow saved the moment and stayed in third place.
Behind me, Mir made another tough move, this time with Ducati’s Jack Miller in fifth place.
The pair made contact a moment later at 200 km / h on the main straight, which was investigated by Race Direction but was considered a racing event.
While all of this was going on, Martin Zarco continued to lead as Quartararo and Vinales fought their way back to the podium after being on the edge of the top 10 in the early stages.
Quartararo overtook Rins on lap 15 in the first corner in fourth and in turn 15 one tour later took third place from Francesco Bagnaia.
The Yamaha couldn’t defend itself against the Ducati rider on the straight, but Bagnaia ran far in Turn 1 and gave Quartararo back third place.
Quartararo’s attack on compatriot Zarco continued on lap 18 before the Yamaha rider passed Martin on Turn 15 to take the lead.
Martin retaliated with the power of his Pramac Ducati on the straight, but Quartararo took his decisive step next time at Turn 4.
From there, Quartararo broke away from the rest of the field and scored Yamaha’s second straight win in Qatar by 1.4 seconds.
Zarco beat Martin on the last lap at Turn 15 and kept him in check for 0.043 seconds on the way to the checkered flag – Zarco led the MotoGP standings for the first time in his career.
Rins’ early accusation for the win waned in the final stages. The Suzuki rider finished fourth after beating Qatar GP winner Vinales.
Bagnaia was the Ducati Team’s sixth works rider in sixth place ahead of Mir, while Brad Binder was rewarded with an eighth from 18th on the grid after playing on the center front tire in the race.
He beat Miller, who emerged again from a race in Qatar, in ninth place, while Aleix Espargaro completed the Aprilia top 10.
Enea Bastianini recovered from 19th to 11th place on the Avintia Ducati, Franco Morbidelli (Petronas SRT) to 12th place at the end of a difficult weekend for the Italian.
Pol Espargaro had worked his way up to the top group in the final stages, but the Honda rider ran far in the first corner and fell back to 13th place ahead of his teammates Stefan Bradl and Oliveira.
Valentino Rossi could only achieve 16th place from his worst 21st place in qualifying on the other SRT Yamaha, while Alex Marquez (LCR) and Iker Lecuona from Tech 3 were out.
Zarco leads Quartararo by four points, Vinales and his team-mate from Yamaha with 36 points.