Bagnaia pips Martin to secure Catalan MotoGP win

Francesco Bagnaia rebounded from his sprint race disaster by overcoming Jorge Martin to win the Catalan MotoGP in Barcelona.

Reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia won the Catalan MotoGP after suffering a disappointing Sprint crash on Saturday, giving Ducati its first victory in Barcelona since Jorge Lorenzo in 2018.

Aleix Espargaro, who started the race in pole position, dropped to fifth place as Bagnaia and the KTM duo of Acosta and Binder managed to establish the lead into Turn 1. Jorge Martin later passed Binder through Turn 10 to secure a spot on the podium and pursue Bagnaia and Acosta.

Meanwhile, Acosta launched himself into Turn 10, but Bagnaia found room on the inside to take the lead again as the former’s prospective 2025 teammate Marquez moved up to ninth, overcoming his current teammate Bastianini.

As Acosta tried to edge Martin on the eleventh lap of the 24 race, he slipped off the brakes into Turn 10 resulting to a tumble that gave the Pramac rider an advantage of over a second.

However, his lead wasn’t enough as Bagnaia steadily chipped away Martin’s advantage, getting squarely behind him by lap 17 and catching up to him a lap later at Turn 5 – the same turn where the Italian crashed on Saturday.

After that, Martin was unable to catch up as he trailed Bagnaia by almost a second until conceding defeat as he finished second, 1.7 seconds off. However, he still holds a 39-point advantage over second-place Bagnaia after the Catalan MotoGP.

Marc Marquez was another rider to take a gamble on a soft rear alongside Acosta, and it basically held up, allowing the six-time champion to make another push through the field. Having started from 14th, he was held up throughout the first few laps by Pramac Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli. However, he was set free when Brad Binder fell back, swiftly overtaking both riders.

In the closing stages, he devoured Raul Fernandez of Trackhouse Aprilia down the main straight before overtaking poleman Aleix Espargaro. While it appeared like the soft rear was finally letting go, Marquez managed to hold off Espargaro by 0.052 seconds to secure the top-three finish, marking his fourth consecutive podium despite starting outside the top 12.

Espargaro, who started the race with drop from first to fifth again was unable to match the leaders’ speed. With the announcement that he will be retiring from full-time competition at the end of this year, it is possible that the 34-year-old was running his farewell MotoGP race at his home circuit in Barcelona.

Fernandez delivered his and Trackhouse’s best race of the season on the 2023-spec Aprilia despite being less competitive on Sunday and having fallen out of the lead on Saturday. However, he lost out on a chance to repeat his career-high fifth place finish when Fabio Di Giannantonio of VR46 Ducati overtook him on the final lap.

The next rider to take a risk on the soft rear was Marquez’s brother Alex, who also found it to be fairly effective before slowing in the final laps to finish seventh.

Binder, who had been among the leaders early on, finished eighth as he continued to perform better than his KTM teammate Jack Miller, whose fall was dramatic. The Aussie was the fourth of the soft-tyre runners to tumble out of seventh place early on.

Fabio Quartararo secured an incredible ninth place for Yamaha after edging Trackhouse Aprilia’s Miguel Oliveira on the final lap. Teammate Alex Rins who started the race far ahead of Quartararo, was forced to complete the long-lap loop at the start, presumably to prevent a collision at Turn 1, and spent the rest of the race at the bottom.

The sister works Aprilia of Maverick Vinales endured a chaotic race; after appearing revitalized in the warm-up, he slipped down to 18th at the start and found it hard to make any progress. He finished in 12th behind Marco Bezzecchi of VR46 Ducati.

Acosta recovered superbly following his crash to pick up points with a 14th-placed finish, ahead of Takaaki Nakagami who sealed Honda’s only point for the weekend. Meanwhile, Joan Mir and Johann Zarco followed closely behind before Luca Marini crossed the line two seconds later.

Wildcard rider Stefan Bradl finished as the last classified Honda rider.

2024 Catalan MotoGP Race Results