We were certainly treated to a cracker of the Spanish Grand Prix as it had early race chaos, great wheel-to-wheel battles up and down the field as well as a fight for the win until the final corner. Amongst all this, Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia showed why he’s the reigning champion with a masterful ride.
Like in the sprint race, there was chaos on the first lap again, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Rnf Aprilia’s Miguel Oliveira tangled in Turn 2, causing a red flag scenario. The latter came out worse as he was declared unfit to continue thanks to a dislocated shoulder. As a result, Quartararo was handed a long lap penalty for causing the incident which turned into another long lap penalty for not serving it correctly.
Incident aside, the fight at the front was action-packed with the two factory KTMs of Jack Miller and Brad Binder flying high with a 1-2 formation early on, exchanging blows to take the race lead. Amongst all this, Bagnaia, who was third bid his time and started making his move towards the midpoint of the race. While he initially got past Miller for second, the stewards deemed the move too aggressive, and he had to give the place back. That being said, it didn’t faze Bagnaia as he made the move stick a couple of laps later.
Now, with a clear run on Binder, Bagnaia sliced through the 1.3-second gap and got past the KTM rider with just three laps to go. But Binder wasn’t going to give this one up without a fight, as the South African rider piled on the pressure, nearly lunging up the inside on the final corner. In the end, Bagnaia held on to take a well earned win, and a nice bounceback from the disastrous Grand Prix of the Americas where he crashed out of the lead.
With the race seeing big names like Alex Rins and Marco Bezzecchi crashing out of the race, Bagnaia has taken back the lead of the rider’s standings and now holds a 22-point lead over Bezzecchi. MotoGP’s next race will be one to remember as it will be the sport’s 1,000th Grand Prix and where better to run it than at the Le Mans circuit in France for the French Grand Prix. The Grand Prix weekend is set to run between May 12-14.
