Aleix Espargaro claimed a dream double with victory in Sunday’s Catalan Grand Prix, which was marred by a horror accident involving reigning MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia.
Espargaro led a first-ever one-two for Aprilia with team-mate Maverick Viñales claiming a close runner-up spot, while Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin completed the podium places in third.
Race leader Bagnaia high-sided through the first chicane and was left stricken on the track in front of the charging pack on the first lap.
KTM’s Brad Binder was unable to avoid hitting Bagnaia and ran over his legs as a gaggle of riders swerved to avoid the factory Ducati rider.
The incident happened moments after a multiple rider pile-up when Ducati’s Enea Bastianini, who started with a three-place grid penalty for impeding another rider in practice, ran in too hot on the brakes at Turn 1 at the start of the race and collided with Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati), who was shunted into Fabio di Giannantonio (Gresini Ducati).
VR46 Ducati’s Marci Bezzecchi and Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) were also caught up in the incident.
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The red flag came out when Bagnaia went down, with six Ducatis in total crashing out.
Bagnaia was confirmed as conscious at the scene and was taken to the medical centre before going on to hospital by ambulance.
Bastianini received a Long Lap penalty for his involvement in the pile-up, which he will serve at the next race he starts after the Lenovo Ducati rider was unable to take part in the restart.
When the race was restarted over a reduced distance of 23 laps, Martin hit the front ahead of Viñales and Espargaro, with Viñales quickly forcing his way through to the front.
Pol Espargaro was an early retirement on the GASGAS Tech 3 KTM with a mechanical issue. Espargaro also failed to finish the Sprint race after a crash on Saturday.
With Viñales leading, Aleix Espargaro was in a hurry to get past Martin and made a pass into Turn 10 on the third lap and set his sights on his team-mate.
The two Aprilia riders quickly pulled away from the rest as Miguel Oliveira (RNF Aprilia) moved into third past Martin to make it a one-two-three for the Italian manufacturer at the front.
South African Binder was forced out on the Red Bull KTM with an issue, pulling off to the side of the track.
After eight laps, Viñales was 0.338s ahead of Espargaro, who was over a second up on Oliveira.
Viñales was setting a hot pace and extended his lead over Espargaro to more than one second, while Martin overhauled Oliveira for third.
With less than 10 laps left, Espargaro gradually began to hunt down Viñales.
He had closed the deficit to half-a-second on lap 17 and a few laps later was almost on the rear of Viñales’ RS-GP23 machine.
Martin was 4.5s back in third ahead of Oliveira, Zarco, Alex Marquez, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM).
With five laps to go, Espargaro was trying to line up a pass on Viñales as the race built to a grandstand finish.
The decisive move came at the beginning of lap 20 when Espargaro pulled alongside Viñales on the front straight, diving up his inside on the brakes into Turn 1.
Espargaro ran deep, pushing Viñales out wide, and gained a few tenths as result.
He then put daylight between himself and Viñales, stretching his advantage to 1.6s with two laps remaining.
Viñales began to close in on the final lap, but Espargaro held out to win by 0.377s.
It was a magic moment for Espargaro, who blew his chance of podium at his home Grand Prix last year after mistakenly believing the race had ended, slowing down as he came across the line while holding a certain second place. The miscalculation cost him eight seconds and he went on to finish fifth.
Martin was 2.8s down on the winner in third, with Zarco on his own in fourth and Oliveira a safe fifth.
Alex Marquez narrowly held off Quartararo and Miller for sixth.
Augusto Fernandez (GASGAS Tech 3 KTM) and Fabio di Giannantonio were the top 10.
Marco Bezzecchi finished 12th behind team-mate Luca Marini, while Marc Marquez was the leading Honda in 13th ahead of Franco Morbidelli (Monster Energy Yamaha).
LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami and Iker Lecuona, and factory Repsol rider Joan Mir closed out the final positions in 15th, 16th and 17th respectively.
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