MotoGP

Espargaro leads Aprilia Barcelona MotoGP 1-2 as Bagnaia hurt

by Valentin Khorounzhiy
5 min read

Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro led an Aprilia 1-2 in a Catalan Grand Prix marred by a pair of huge accidents on the opening lap, including one for championship leader Pecco Bagnaia.

Bagnaia had kept the lead from pole at the start, but highsided off his Ducati coming out of Turn 2, finding himself in the middle of the track with the pack coming at him.

His landing looked painful already, and he then had the KTM of Brad Binder hit him in the legs. Bagnaia consequently couldn’t leave the site of the accident under his own steam – and was taken to the circuit medical centre by ambulance, naturally ruled out of the race.

However, Binder did attest to being basically “fine” and appearing to have avoided any major injury after visiting him in the medical centre.

Just a corner prior that accident, five fellow Ducati riders had crashed in a pile-up reminiscent of the one at the same corner last year, which that time had been triggered by Takaaki Nakagami and involved Bagnaia and the currently-injured Alex Rins.

This time, Bagnaia’s works team-mate Enea Bastianini was the culprit, approaching at a sharp angle from the inside and making contact with Johann Zarco, with the resulting collision going through the pack and taking down the two Gresini Ducatis of Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio and the VR46 Ducati of Marco Bezzecchi.

All but Bagnaia and Bastianini took the restart, with the Ducati factory pair going to hospital in Barcelona. Bastianini was assessed a long-lap penalty during the red-flag stoppage, which will now be presumably converted into a three-place grid penalty for Misano next week.

Sprint winner Espargaro, who had lost out during the original start, looked to have fared slightly better off the line the second time around, but was still leapfrogged by Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin – and then had to yield at Turn 1 to team-mate Maverick Vinales.

Vinales then successfully launched it down the inside of Martin at Turn 4 and, with Vinales immediately threatening a breakaway, his team-mate forced Martin into a wider line at Turn 10 two laps later to establish an Aprilia 1-2 and set out after Vinales.

The next lap, another Turn 4 lunge on Martin – this time by Miguel Oliveira – made it an Aprilia top-three lockout, but while Espargaro reeled in Vinales, Oliveira on the 2022-spec RNF Aprilia didn’t have the pace to keep up.

It therefore became a Vinales-Espargaro duel for victory – and one in which Vinales first kept Espargaro at around three tenths of a second off, before a slow run through the final corner and then a wide entry into Turn 1 and another mistake a couple corners later dropped Espargaro to over a second back right before the halfway point.

Yet by lap 14 of 23 Espargaro was back within a second of Vinales, and eventually he reduced the gap to nothing, arriving right at the back of his fellow RS-GP with five laps left to run.

On lap 20, Espargaro drew alongside Vinales on the main straight and as Vinales tried to stick it around the outside, he was forced to cut into the long-lap loop on the outside of Turn 1.

It was game over in the fight for the win from there on, Espargaro pulling well over a second clear before his pace dropped off and he took the chequered flag by four tenths over Vinales.

It marked Aprilia’s first-ever MotoGP 1-2, but a full podium lockout proved a dream too far, as Oliveira was swallowed up by the Pramac Ducatis behind him.

A lap 10 overtake by Martin at Turn 10 secured him the podium, bringing him to 50 points off Bagnaia, while Oliveira followed Zarco home in fifth.

KTM rider Jack Miller had run sixth after a great start but ultimately had to yield to Marquez, who like Zarco recovered nicely after that original-start crash, and Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, salvaging a respectable result from what had been a dire weekend for the M1 bikes and MotoGP’s Japanese contingent as a whole.

Marc Marquez was the lead Honda rider all the way back in 13th, one place behind Bezzecchi, who could only salvage a handful of points after his original-start crash and is now 71 adrift of Bagnaia.

There were three mechanical retirements in the race – with Pol Espargaro (Tech3 Gas Gas), Raul Fernandez (RNF Aprilia) and Binder (KTM) all exiting, Binder having been on course for a top-five challenge at worst.

There were, however, no crashes after that original aborted start – but there was one before, Rins’ injury stand-in Iker Lecuona having gone down on the original sighting lap before going on to finish 16th for LCR Honda.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Bike Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Aleix Espargaró Aprilia Racing Aprilia 23 4 38m56.159s 1m40.362s 0 37
2 Maverick Viñales Aprilia Racing Aprilia 23 19 +0.377s 1m40.343s 0 27
3 Jorge Martin Prima Pramac Racing Ducati 23 0 +2.831s 1m40.756s 0 21
4 Johann Zarco Prima Pramac Racing Ducati 23 0 +4.867s 1m40.746s 0 16
5 Miguel Oliveira CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team Aprilia 23 0 +7.529s 1m40.524s 0 15
6 Alex Marquez Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 23 0 +10.59s 1m40.986s 0 10
7 Fabio Quartararo Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 23 0 +10.821s 1m40.933s 0 9
8 Jack Miller Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 23 0 +10.88s 1m40.879s 0 8
9 Augusto Fernandez GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 KTM 23 0 +12.889s 1m40.987s 0 7
10 Fabio Di Giannantonio Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 23 0 +13.28s 1m40.933s 0 6
11 Luca Marini Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati 23 0 +16.491s 1m41.304s 0 5
12 Marco Bezzecchi Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati 23 0 +16.561s 1m41.203s 0 6
13 Marc Marquez Repsol Honda Team Honda 23 0 +21.616s 1m40.996s 0 3
14 Franco Morbidelli Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 23 0 +23.108s 1m41.269s 0 2
15 Takaaki Nakagami LCR Honda IDEMITSU Honda 23 0 +26.74s 1m41.699s 0 1
16 Iker Lecuona LCR Honda CASTROL Honda 23 0 +28.86s 1m41.83s 0 0
17 Joan Mir Repsol Honda Team Honda 23 0 +33.929s 1m41.494s 0 0
Raul Fernandez CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team Aprilia 10 0 DNF 1m40.823s 0 0
Brad Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 3 0 DNF 1m40.682s 0 6
Pol Espargaró GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 KTM 1 0 DNF 0s 0 0
Enea Bastianini Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 0 0 DNS 0s 0 1
Francesco Bagnaia Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 0 0 DNS 0s 0 9
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More Networks