Bagnaia charges to victory as Bastianini mugs Martin for second

Bagnaia claimed the lead at Turn 2 on the opening lap and never looked back, taking the chequered flag by 0.8s over team-mate Bastianini, as championship leader Martin had to settle for third.

At the start of the race, Bagnaia made a brilliant launch from fifth on the grid, taking the outside line into Turn 1 to shoot up to second position, before sending his factory Ducati up the inside of Martin to snatch the lead.

Once in front, Bagnaia set a series of fastest laps to break away from Martin, although the Pramac rider was able to cut his deficit back to 0.6s at the halfway stage of the race.

There was a big scare for Bagnaia with three laps to go as Martin closed the gap between the two to under three tenths, threatening to deny him a home victory.

But Bagnaia was able to respond to Martin’s pace on the next tour to pull himself clear and complete a double win at Mugello, having also won Saturday’s sprint race with a similarly-brilliant start.

Martin looked set to finish behind his chief championship rival, but Bastianini dived by at the final corner to snatch second from the Spaniard and complete a 1-2 for Ducati.

Marc Marquez spent the majority of the race circulating behind the second factory Ducati of Enea Bastianini, even making a mistake at Turn 1 on lap 3 and bringing Tech3 GasGas’s Pedro Acosta into play.

After resisting the advances of Acosta, who himself ran wide at the final corner a few laps later, Marquez again started piling pressure on Bastianini, but struggled to find a way through on the Italian.

It was only with six laps remaining in the race that Marquez finally got through on Bastianini with a typical block pass into the opening right-hander.

However, Bastianini never allowed Marquez to run away with third position and on the penultimate lap he nudged the Gresini rider aside before charging after Martin.

Acosta was once again the top rider from the KTM contingent in fifth, as Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli celebrated the best result of the season in sixth ahead of VR46 rider Fabio di Giannantonio.

Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales couldn’t convert his front row start into a top position, dropping behind di Giannantonio in the latter stages to end up eighth. Alex Marquez took ninth for Gresini Ducati as factory KTM rider Brad Binder completed the top 10.

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