Bagnaia made a late cost in Saturday’s inaugural dash contest in Portugal to take the first win on offer in 2023, and backed this up with a measured trip to maintain Aprilia’s Vinales at bay for the primary grand prix victory of the yr.
The manufacturing facility Ducati rider received pinched off the road from second by poleman Marc Marquez and Pramac’s Jorge Martin.
However when Marquez made contact with Martin and crashed into Miguel Oliveira at Flip 3 on lap three of 25, Bagnaia was launched right into a lead he wouldn’t relinquish regardless of strain from Vinales.
Bagnaia ends the opening spherical of his title defence 12 factors away from the remainder after his double victory.
The beginning of the grand prix was hectic, with RNF Aprilia’s Oliveira briefly snatching the lead from fourth on the grid.
The house favorite couldn’t maintain the road tight and allowed Pramac’s Martin to take the lead, although Marquez tried to quash this into Flip 3.
Marquez pressured himself and Martin barely huge into Flip 3 together with his unsuccessful overtaking try, permitting Oliveira to swoop again into the lead on the skin of Flip 4.
Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Workforce
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
By way of this chaos, Bagnaia emerged in third and rapidly moved as much as second into the primary nook on lap two.
Bagnaia made gentle work of Oliveira at Flip 13 moments later and started to place some daylight between himself and the chasing pack.
That hole swelled to a second when Marquez misjudged his braking into Flip 3 on the third tour and made contact with Martin, earlier than slamming his Honda into Oliveira.
Each Marquez and Oliveira had been taken out within the incident, with the latter needing to be stretchered off monitor. Scans within the medical centre revealed he had suffered no damaged bones.
Marquez will endure checks in hospital in Barcelona on a attainable fracture to his proper hand following the accident.
Vinales, who was promoted to sixth on the grid attributable to Enea Bastianini’s absence after struggling a shoulder fracture in Saturday’s dash race, was now Bagnaia’s nearest challenger after the Marquez/Oliveira conflict.
Over the fourth tour, Vinales reduce Bagnaia’s lead down from a second to only 4 tenths and stored him sincere via to lap 11.
However on lap 12, Bagnaia began to up his tempo, opening up a niche of 0.6s, which continued to develop to 1.2s by the top of the 18th tour.
Marco Bezzecchi, VR46 Racing Workforce
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
As Bagnaia stage-managed his race, the hole between the pair shrunk by a number of tenths in the beginning of the ultimate lap.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t sufficient to derail Bagnaia’s march to the chequered flag and he sealed victory 0.687s away from Vinales.
Marco Bezzecchi rose from seventh on the grid to finish the rostrum comfortably on his year-old VR46 Ducati, whereas Pramac’s Johann Zarco snatched fourth on the ultimate lap after a frantic battle.
He beat Gresini’s Alex Marquez to fourth, with the Spaniard simply warding off the attacking KTMs of Brad Binder and Jack Miller.
Fabio Quartararo endured one other tough begin to his race and dropped to fifteenth on the opening lap from tenth on the grid.
The Yamaha rider salvaged eighth after capitalising on a late mistake for Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro.
Alex Rins accomplished the highest 10 as the highest Honda rider on his LCR-run RC213V, with former Suzuki team-mate Joan Mir on the manufacturing facility Honda eleventh after serving his lengthy lap penalty for his conflict with Quartararo within the dash.
Tech3 GASGAS rookie Augusto Fernandez took three factors on his debut in thirteenth, with Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli the final labeled finisher in 14th.
Martin was dumped to sixteenth after being concerned within the Marquez/Oliveira crash, and had managed to get well to tenth when he crashed out on lap 20.
Two excursions later, Luca Marini on the second VR46 Ducati – who inherited tenth from Martin – fell off. Gresini’s Fabio Di Giannantonio and RNF’s Raul Fernandez additionally failed to complete.