Pecco Bagnaia hailed his gritty podium finish in the San Marino Sprint race at Misano as one of his best results after the reigning MotoGP World Champion rode through the pain barrier.

Bagnaia suffered a vicious high-side from his Lenovo Ducati in the Catalan Grand Prix last Sunday and was hit by Brad Binder, who was unable to avoid running over the Italian’s legs.

Bagnaia was taken to hospital but incredibly escaped without any broken bones, although the championship leader is nursing a knee injury, revealing he has a haematoma which ‘goes all the way down to my foot’.

Bagnaia was in clear discomfort after the 13-lap race on Saturday and went for some physiotherapy to help improve his physical condition, but the prospect of the longer 27-lap Grand Prix at the Marco Simoncelli Circuit is one that is filling him with dread.

Bagnaia, who had to dig deep to hold off KTM wild card Dani Pedrosa to clinch third, said: “It was an intense battle, more with myself or the bike than with the other riders.

“Dani [Pedrosa] was pushing a lot in the last laps and I was trying to take the energy from a multiverse!

“I don’t know, it was important to brake as hard as I could and like always to [prevent] any chance of [anyone] being close.

“It was difficult because in the first two or three laps I needed to warm [up] again the leg because I was struggling to lean the bike on the right, and after a few laps it started to be better.

“I was increasing the lap time, the pace, and I was feeling quite good. It was a feeling that I was expecting because I was suffering with the soft rear tyre a bit this morning,” he added.

“For sure tomorrow it will change because with the medium I feel a bit better; let’s see, because it will not be easy. We still have a lot of laps and I’m quite scared about it, but I don’t want to think about that too much.”

Bagnaia says he will again rely on painkillers to help him manage in Sunday’s race after the 26-year-old admitted his Sprint podium was more than he imagined possible.

“In the middle of the Sprint race I started to struggle too much on the position with the foot,” he said.

“It’s what we have and we just have to manage it for tomorrow, to increase the painkillers to feel better.

“My objective was the top five and to finish the first race after crashing in Barcelona in the top three I think is one of the best results ever, because of the situation, because of the pain.

“I couldn’t ask any more than this.”

Race winner Jorge Martin cut Bagnaia’s lead in the standings to 45 points with eight rounds left after the San Marino weekend.