Pecco Bagnaia home first past MotoGP leader Jorge Martin in Catalunya meeting

Pecc Bagnaia wins the Grand Prix of Catalunya. (Photo by Lenovo Ducati)

Bagnaia, who crashed out of the lead in the previous day’s Sprint race, made no mistakes in the Grand Prix.

He led on the opening four laps before Martin took over at the front and stretched his lead to over a second over Bagnaia by the halfway stage of the race.

The Italian, however, regrouped and began closing on the Spaniard as fastest lap after fastest lap saw Bagnaia close on to Martin’s rear wheel and on lap 19 at turn five - the corner he crashed out of in the Sprint race - he squeezed past to lead. Martin had no answers and settled for second nearly two seconds adrift of the winner.

“I was very angry about yesterday, but I knew that the potential was good enough to be able to win the race,” said Bagnaia. “I tried everything at the start. It wasn't easy because other riders were pushing a lot.

"But then when I saw that they were starting to struggle a bit with the front, I started to push more and the pace was fantastic. The bike was fantastic.

"My team did an incredible job yesterday to set up the bike again. I’m very happy and now looking forward to Mugello, my home GP.”

Martin, who has a 39-point lead over Bagnaia, was still happy.

“Yeah, I'm super happy and super proud of the race,” he said. “Today was a tough one starting from seventh. It was a difficult one, but I executed perfectly the first corner, coming into fourth.

"Then I felt great. I was saving some tyre but even though I was over-taking riders, I felt that Pecco had something else.

"I tried to keep the pace always but at the end I had nothing left in my pocket to finish. I saw we had a big gap and I tried to put some pressure on Pecco, but it was so difficult.”

Marc Marquez (Gresini Ducati) had another amazing race to claim his second podium in two days, coming through from 14th on the grid to snatch third, four laps from home, from Sprint race winner Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing), who announced that he will retire from MotoGP at the end of the season.

British star Jake Dixon (CFMOTO Inde Aspar Team) claimed his first podium of 2024, finishing third in Moto2 behind MT Helmets team-mates Ai Ogura and Sergio Garcia.

Columbian David Alonso (CFMoto Aspar Team) claimed back-to-back wins at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with a perfect performance in the Moto3 race.