Francesco Bagnaia clinched victory in the MotoGP Sprint race in Barcelona, keeping the championship fight alive heading into the season finale on Sunday.
The factory Ducati rider produced a comfortable victory out at the front, and the winner of the 2024 title showdown will be revealed tomorrow.
Enea Bastianini and Jorge Martin secured second and third place to round off another 1-2-3 Ducati podium.
Bastianini and Martin battled hard off the line to occupy the front two slots into Turn 1, while Bagnaia’s start from pole position saw him drop down to third.
Bagnaia recovered to overtake his team-mate into Turn 2, the two-time champion shot off into the distance and formulated a few bike lengths gap between himself and the second factory Bologna bike.
The chaotic start continued as GasGas rider Pedro Acosta’s fairing fell off his KTM around the loop into Turn 3 as Marc Marquez cut across his front. The Spaniards collided, but no crashes occurred. Acosta went back to the garage at the end of Lap 1 to retire the bike.
Bagnaia’s lead remained the same inside the opening three laps, and Martin lunged his way through Bastianini to claim second on into Turn 1, before the factory Ducati rider replied a lap later in the same corner.
Martin’s last corner entrance launched him down the straight heading into Turn 1 on Lap 5 and displayed true aggression to force him out onto the curve. As a result, the Rimini rider’s entrance into Turn 3 put him under significant pressure from Franco Morbidelli and Alex Marquez behind but he maintained the final podium spot.
By this point, Bagnaia’s lead had stretched even further to 1.5s+ due to the chaos behind, but the championship leader was gaining by small margins.
The race’s second half was determined by whether Martin was willing to risk crashing to close the gap to the Italian out front.
The Spaniard opted not to chase Bagnaia but had to stay vigilant of the rider behind. As usual, Bastianini produced the goods in the dying embers and caught up to the back of the Pramac heading into the final lap.
The Italian rider raced the final lap perfectly, placing the bike perfectly into Turn 5. He then secured the all-important move to snatch second place from Martin on his inside line.
Bagnaia’s win saw the championship deficit cut to 19 points for Sunday’s Grand Prix, and he was the best rider on the day, winning by just under a second after the 12-lapper.
Bastianini recovered from eighth in qualifying to secure a strong result for the factory Ducati team, as the Italian has one eye on securing third in the championship standings.
Martin’s third place completed the podium places after securing another important appearance on the rostrum.
Aleix Espargaro dropped down to eighth after the first lap but recovered remarkably to claim fourth spot for Aprilia despite the late pressure of the Ducati duo of Alex Marquez and Morbidelli.
Older brother Marquez couldn’t recover up the grid following his early incident with Acosta and brought the bike home in seventh, as the Spaniard narrowly beat Marco Bezzecchi, Brad Binder and Fabio Quartararo to the line.
All four riders were separated by half a second, but further back, Johann Zarco’s 11th placed finish provided Honda’s best result of the Sprint.
Maverick Vinales’ rapid practice pace meant nothing in the Sprint race itself as he fell to 12th before Joan Mir secured 13th.
Raul Fernandez and Trackhouse finished 14th despite a problematic qualifying outing. The Spaniard produced late overtakes on Luca Marini and Alex Rins, who finished behind.
Takaaki Nakagami occupied 17th place ahead of the returning Miguel Oliveira and KTM rider Jack Miller.
Augusto Fernandez closed out 20th place to cap off a disastrous day for GasGas, as Ducati and Honda test riders Michele Pirro and Stefan Bradl closed out proceedings.
