MotoGP Catalunya: Bagnaia Bounces Back Again for Catalan Victory

The sixth round of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship takes the series to Barcelona for the Catalan Grand Prix, with Jorge Martin holding a 38-point championship lead ahead of this weekend's MotoGP Catalunya.

Overview

• Grand Prix - Bagnaia bounces back to beat Martin late, Marquez third

• Sprint - Aleix Espargaro wins the Catalan MotoGP Sprint after a last lap crash for Francesco Bagnaia

• Qualifying - Espargaro takes pole position and lap record as Martin crashes and Marquez misses Q2

• Friday Practice - Espargaro breaks the lap record as Marquez misses Q2

• Schedule - All the times you need to follow this weekend's action in Barcelona

• 2023 - Espargaro doubles up at home after first turn carnage

Grand Prix

Francesco Bagnaia responded in the perfect fashion to his last-lap crash-from-the-lead in the MotoGP Catalunya Sprint by winning the Catalan Grand Prix.

Patience was Bagnaia’s weapon in Catalunya, even if he made the holeshot. He fended off pressure initially from Pedro Acosta, but when Jorge Martin replaced the #31 as Bagnaia’s primary challenger, the #89 wasted little time in making his way through to the lead. 

Martin hit the front at turn 10 on lap four, and Acosta - sensing the threat of a Martin escape job - followed him through at the same turn on the following lap.

Martin and Acosta escaped to the tune of a second from Bagnaia, but the Italian stopped the bleeding at that. Then, when Acosta crashed at turn 10 on lap 11, Bagnaia upped the intensity.

He dropped back into the 1:39s and low-1:40s, and by lap 18 he was on Martin’s rear wheel. It was game on, and Bagnaia’s patient middle portion of the race now paid in grip, which he used to pass Martin at turn five - the same place he crashed from the lead in the Sprint - on lap 19.

Bagnaia was not exactly explosive from there, but he edged away from Martin, eventually winning by 1.740 seconds - his third GP win of the year and keeping his championship alive.

Martin still leads the points, but after Bagnaia lost six on Saturday he gained five back today, and trails by 39 ahead of his home Grand Prix in Mugello next weekend.

Marc Marquez’ home race was this weekend, and after going 14th-to-second in the Sprint, he played a slower game to get to third in the Grand Prix, passing Aleix Espargaro on lap 21, to which Espargaro was unable to respond.

Espargaro, then, had to settle for fourth in his final home GP, but after pole and the win it had nonetheless been a strong weekend for Aprilia’s leading star.

Fabio Di Giannantonio quietly found himself in fifth place, passing Raul Fernandez late on and demoting the Spaniard to sixth. Fernandez didn’t have the devastating speed of Saturday, but he erased the devastation he brought on himself by crashing, too, being a legitimate top five contender throughout the race.

Alex Marquez was seventh, ahead of KTM's Brad Binder, who was in the lead fight early but ran out of speed early, too, slipping to 18.5 seconds off the win by the end and taking eighth place. 

Enea Bastianini had a disastrous race, taking a long-lap penalty for cutting the turn 1-2 chicane when Alex Marquez passed him, and then got two long lap penalties for not serving the initial penalty. He finished ninth, while Fabio Quartararo completed the top 10.

Pedro Acosta remounted after his crash and finished 14th.

After the race, Enea Bastianini was handed a ride-through-equivalent penalty of 32 seconds for not completing his double-long-lap penalty. That dropped him to 18th, promoted Miguel Oliveria to the top 10, and gave Joan Mir the final point in 15th.

Full MotoGP results from the Catalan Grand Prix are below.

2024 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix Result | Grand Prix

Sprint

Aleix Espargaro won for the first time in MotoGP this year in the Catalan Sprint, taking advantage of three leaders’ crashes.

The first was for Raul Fernandez, who was 0.8 seconds in the lead when he fell at turn 10. Brad Binder was a similar distance out front when he crashed at turn five on lap seven. Five laps later, Francesco Bagnaia - who made the holeshot but went backwards before returning to the lead after Binder’s fall - crashed at the same turn as Binder to throw away what would have been his first Sprint win of the season.

It was poetic for Espargaro, who announced his retirement on Thursday, and who has indicated that any MotoGP testing future for him lies outside of Aprilia.

Behind him, Marc Marquez beat Pedro Acosta to second place despite losing his left-front wing on the first lap in contact with Jack Miller.

Jorge Martin rode fairly quietly to fourth. It was the first time in 13 Sprints that Martin had missed the podium in the half-distance race, but his championship lead reduced by only one point. It’s now over Marc Marquez, and Bagnaia is now 44 back.

Enea Bastianini was fifth, just under a second behind Martin, and ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio in sixth. Seventh was Jack Miller, ahead of Maverick Vinales, and Marco Bezzecchi who took the final point in ninth. Fabio Quartararo rounded out the top 10 for Yamaha.

Full MotoGP results from the Catalan Sprint are below.

2024 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix Result | Sprint

Qualifying

Aleix Esaprgaro scored pole position at the Catalan MotoGP, beating Francesco Bagnaia to claim the all-time lap record.

Espargaro was 0.4 seconds adrift of Bagnaia after the first run, but Bagnaia’s best attempt - a 1:38.128 - was cancelled for yellow flags on the second tyre. That opened the door for Espargaro and Aprilia, who took pole with a 1:38.190, beating the lap record that had been set by Fabio Di Giannantonio in Q1 at 1:38.208.

Bagnaia maintained second place, meaning he will start from the middle of the front row for the second time in two races, but also that he remains without a pole position since Malaysia 2023.

Brad Binder, who crashed twice in Practice on Friday, was third-fastest and completes the front row in Barcelona. He out-qualified Pedro Acosta, who will start fourth, alongside Di Giannantonio (a 1:38.400 in Q2) and Jorge Martin on the second row.

It was yellow flags for Martin - and Pramac Ducati teammate Franco Morbidelli - at turn two that cost Bagnaia his 38.128. Martin simply lost the front, likely with low tyre temperature, in much the same way as Binder had done in that corner on Friday afternoon.

Raul Fernandez came through Q1 to qualify seventh, ahead of Alex Rins on the leading Yamaha, while Jack Miller was ninth. Morbidelli ended up 10th after his crash in the wake of Martin, while Enea Bastianini was 11th, and Maverick Vinales 12th.

Marc Marquez missed out on Q2 in similar fashion to Le Mans. The Spaniard was in the top two of Q1 with a couple of minutes to go, but he was beaten late by Di Giannantonio and Fernandez to knock him out. Then, his Gresini teammate Alex Marquez bumped him to 14th, meaning the #93 will start from the middle of the fifth row in this weekend’s two races.

Full MotoGP results from qualifying, and the pre-qualifying FP2, are below.

2024 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix Result | Qualifying

Friday Practice

Aleix Espargaro was fastest at the end of Practice for the MotoGP riders at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The Catalan had announced his retirement on Thursday, but set a new all-time lap record on Friday afternoon.

Unusually, there were no Ducatis in the top three. Behind Espargaro, there were instead two KTMs, with Brad Binder going second-fastest despite some early crashes, and Pedro Acosta close behind in third.

Francesco Bagnaia was the best Ducati in fourth place, just under two tenths shy of Espargaro's benchmark, while Jack Miller made it three KTMs in the top five, ahead of three more Ducatis: Jorge Martin sixth, Enea Bastianini seventh, and Franco Morbidelli eighth - all on GP24s.

Alex Rins impressed in ninth with Yamaha's new fairing, while Maverick Vinales rounded out the top 10 on the second Aprilia.

The best Desmosedici GP23 was Alex Marquez in 11th, but he crashed late on. In a way, the yellow flags for his crash cost his Gresini teammate, Marc Marquez, from getting through. A bigger factor in Marquez' inability to make the top 10, though, was his lack of speed.

Honda test rider Stefan Bradl didn't set a time in Practice due to illness.

Full MotoGP results from Practice and FP1 are below.

2024 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix Result | Practice

2024 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix Result | FP1

Schedule

Jorge Martin arrives to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend with a 38-point lead over Francesco Bagnaia in the MotoGP riders' standings. Marc Marquez is one point further back after finishing second to Martin in France two weeks ago.

The Catalan Grand Prix is the third race of the main European part of the season, meaning the schedule is much the same as at the French and Spanish Grands Prix. The full schedule for this weekend, with times in BST, is below.

2024 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix | Schedule

2023 MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix

Aleix Espargaro won both the Sprint and Grand Prix at the 2023 Catalan Grand Prix. The Sunday race was also notable for the first turn crash caused by Enea Bastianini, and Francesco Bagnaia's turn two crash.

2023 MotoGP Catalunya Results | Grand Prix

2023 MotoGP Catalunya Results | Sprint

2023 MotoGP Catalunya Results | Qualifying

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