Less than 24 hours after throwing away a victory in the MotoGP sprint in Barcelona on the last lap, Francesco Bagnaia hits back impressively in the Grand Prix. He catches up with Jorge Martin, who had been in the lead for a long time, and wins ahead of the world championship leader. Marc Marquez makes another comeback and finishes third. Pedro Acosta crashes just before the halfway point of the race while lying in second place.
Martin is now 39 points ahead of Bagnaia in the World Championship, who has reclaimed second place from Marc Marquez. He is 41 points behind. Enea Bastianini is already 61 points behind after a disastrous race in Barcelona.
MotoGP Barcelona: The racing film
The starting line-up: 1. A. Espargaro, 2. Bagnaia, 3. R. Fernandez, 4. Binder, 5. Acosta, 6. Di Giannantonio, 7. Martin, 8. Rins, 9. Miller, 10. Morbidelli, 11. Bastianini, 12. Vinales, 13. A. Marquez, 14. M. Marquez, 15. Oliveira, 16. Bezzecchi, 17. Quartararo, 18. Zarco, 19. A. Fernandez, 20. Nakagami, 21. Mir, 22. Marini, 23. Bradl
Begin: Bagnaia gets the best start and takes the lead ahead of Acosta, Binder and Martin. Pole sitter Aleix Espargaro drops to fifth place. Marc Marquez moves up from 14th place on the grid to 11th place.
1 round: Martin brakes past Binder in turn 10 and is now third.
3rd round: Acosta attacks Bagnaia at turn ten, but has to go wide and Bagnaia slips through again on the inside lane. Acosta has to right his GasGas machine to avoid contact.
Jack Miller crashes out of the race in Turn 10.
4th round: Now Acosta even loses a person in turn ten: Martin overtakes the rookie while braking and is now second.
5th round: Martin is in the lead! He also takes out Bagnaia in turn 10 and takes the lead.
6th round: Another loss of position for Bagnaia: He also loses second place to Acosta in turn ten.
Meanwhile, Augusto Fernandez, like Miller before him, crashed in Turn 10.
11th round: Aleix Espargaro catches Binder before turn one, who also has to let Raul Fernandez pass in turn 3.
Acosta crashes! He slides right behind Martin in turn ten. He is able to continue the race, but is now only in 20th place, 21 seconds behind.
Martin is now one second ahead of Bagnaia, with Aleix Espargaro another three seconds behind.
12th round: Marc Marquez is now on the rise. He has overtaken Binder and is already fifth, just six seconds behind leader Martin.
16th round: Bagnaia is closing in on Martin. The gap is now only half a second.
17th round: Bastianini neglected to take a long lap penalty after taking a shortcut between turns one and two. The penalty is therefore doubled: double long lap. Bad prospects for the Ducati factory rider, who is already only in 9th place.
18th round: Marc Marquez continues to advance. He overtakes Raul Fernandez before Turn 1 and takes fourth place.
Franco Morbidelli sinks his good sixth place into the gravel bed of turn ten.
19th round: Bagnaia is in the lead! He pushes past Martin in Turn 5 and is able to immediately open up a small gap.
21st round: Marc Marquez easily overtakes Aleix Espargaro on the start-finish straight and thus makes it to third place.
24th and final round: Aleix Espargaro chases Marc Marquez and sticks to the rear wheel of the Ducati, but can no longer launch a real attack.
Goal: Bagnaia wins 1.740 seconds ahead of Martin. Marc Marquez comes third, 52 thousandths ahead of Aleix Espargaro. Fabio Di Giannantonio is fifth, followed by Raul Fernandez and Alex Marquez. Binder is eighth, Quartararo and Oliveira complete the top ten. Bezzecchi is eleventh ahead of Vinales. Acosta is 13th after his fall, Nakagami and Mir take the last World Championship points. Bastianini ignores the penalties imposed on him, finishes ninth, but is relegated 32 seconds and ends up in 18th place, just ahead of Honda wildcard Stefan Bradl.