Francesco Bagnaia made amends from his Sprint crash on Saturday to win Sunday’s MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix as Ducati sealed its first win in Barcelona since Jorge Lorenzo in 2018.
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Championship leader Jorge Martin and fellow championship rival Marc Marquez occupied the remaining podium spots.
Bagnaia and the KTM duo of Acosta and Binder were able to launch off the line to lead proceedings into Turn 1, as pole-sitter Aleix Espargaro fell to fifth. Martin divebombed Binder into Turn 10 to get himself onto the podium to chase down the front two of Bagnaia and Acosta. Acos- ta made a lunge into Turn 10 but Bagnaia found space on the inside to reclaim the lead, as his potential team-mate for 2025 Marquez rose to ninth, overtaking his current team-mate Bastianini.
Miller crashed out behind to pile on more misery to his season, with the pressure increasing on his future by the race.
Martin squared it past Acosta on Lap 4 before dispatching Bagnaia on the following lap in Turn 10. An Espargaro mistake on entry from Turn 3 provided Fernandez with enough speed to make a move on the outside line into Turn 4. The now 20-year-old Acosta got the better of Bagnaia in Turn 10 while his team-mate Augusto Fernandez retired following a crash earlier in the lap.
Espargaro was able to fight his way back past the Trackhouse Aprilia of Fernandez a few laps later before both riders caught Binder off guard to move up into fourth and fifth. On the other side of the factory Aprilia garage despite Maverick Vinales’ impressive form this season the Spaniard struggled throughout the first half of the race to pass Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo.
Acosta’s weekend couldn’t provide him with a birthday wish that he hoped as he lost the front of his GasGas into Turn 10 on Lap 11. Marquez rose three positions following Acosta’s crash by overtaking Franco Morbidelli and Binder as he once again was on the charge for another podium.
Bastianini was the first rider to be given a long lap penalty due to a shortcut at Turn 2 after being forced out wide by Marc Marquez.
Bastianini failed to comply with the stewards’ decision therefore he was awarded a double long-lap penalty, which he also failed to comply with. The race officials then handed him a ride-through penalty. Again, he failed to comply as he “didn’t agree,” so he wound up with a 32-second time penalty at the end of the race.
Bagnaia meanwhile, was able to catch up to leader Martin and comfortably overtook the championship leader in Turn 5 and rode off to the sunset. Eight seconds further back, Marquez swooped past Espargaro into Turn 1 with four laps left to go. Bagnaia’s win in Catalunya made it his third Sunday race win of the season, with Martin extending his championship lead by an additional point.
“I am still thinking about yesterday,” Bagnaia admitted. “But the win from today is making me happy, but not at all because of a [potential] 37-point weekend. But the crash was a shame so in any case disappointed about yesterday but very happy about today. We confirmed they are where we have been all weekend and were just faster. The start they are competitive but I saw they were pushing a bit too much on the tyres so I decided to be more calm. In the last laps when I saw Jorge struggling, I pushed again. It was fantastic to win but I was scared to crash again in the last lap, luckily I finished it. I chose [to overtake Martin at Turn 5] there because of that [where Bagnaia crashed in the Sprint].”
Runner-up Martin added: “It was a long long race. My strategy was perfect till the last seven laps. My first lap I did perfectly from seventh to third. I was able to overtake rid- ers like Brad [Binder], Pedro [Acosta], Pecco [Bagnaia]. Yesterday was completely impossible. I felt a bit better [when out at the front], I felt better this weekend with my pace to be faster and when I was close to Pedro [Acosta] I used a bit too much tyre. Maybe the front I was using a bit too much. I had nothing else to fight with. I tried to keep up [with Bagnaia] for two laps then the rear tyre. I saw we then had seven or eight seconds and yes just tried to finish and make it to the end.”
Marquez once more secured a podium from the fifth row of the grid, edging out a late charge from Espargaro for the all-important final podium spot. “Extra work today especially because the start was good but not super good because I made a mistake with the clutch,” the Spaniard said. “That 14th position [in qualifying] forced me to put on soft rear tyre, especially to overtake on the first twelve laps because the medium you’d be stuck behind the others. I thought I was fighting for fifth position and then after riding through the first corner after the finish line I saw I was third place and that was a shot of adrenaline. It wasn’t super risky [going for the soft rear tyre] because in the end the tyre consumption on the rear side which was the worst was very similar tyres. In fact I want to say that for the first time [with Ducati] that I had everything under control.”
Fabio Di Giannantonio went under the radar to produce a last-lap move on Fernandez, to finish fifth ahead of the Trackhouse Aprilia rider.
Gresini Ducati rounded off an encouraging weekend display with Alex Marquez earning himself a solid seventh, but Binder fell further after being toward the front early on to finish an eventual eighth.
Bastianini brought the bike home in ninth, but his haul of penalties related him to 18th, meaning Quartararo inherited ninth instead. Miguel Oliveira provided a double strong points finish for Trackhouse, defying a late charge from another below-par finish of 11th for Marco Bezzecchi.
Maverick Vinales finished an underwhelming 12th as Acosta recovered superbly following his crash to pick up points with a 13th-placed finish.
The battle of the beleaguered Honda riders was won by Takaaki Nakagami who scored two points for the LCR team in 14th ahead of factory HRC rider Joan Mir. Johann Zarco followed closely behind and Luca Marini crossed the line two seconds later than the Frenchman. Wildcard rider Stefan Bradl finished as the last classified Honda rider, but Yamaha’s Alex Rins endured a difficult race as he finished a minute off the winner Bag- naia as the final classified rider.
Pramac Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli, GasGas Tech3’s Augusto Fernandez and KTM’s Jack Miller all fell off and failed to finish.
