Bikesportnz

It was a perfect weekend for Italy’s Enea Bastianini after he backed up his sprint race win on Saturday with the main MotoGP race win at the British GP the following day.

His Ducati Lenovo Team was absolutely thrilled to win at Silverstone, Bastianini celebrating his maiden win of the season in a Sunday encounter.

Bastianini’s fellow Italian team-mate and defending world champion Francesco Bagnaia crossed the finish line in third place after leading for more than half the race.

Second in the race on Sunday (Monday NZ time) was Spain’s Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac Ducati) and he now takes over the championship lead from Bagnaia.

Bastianini had a good start from third place on the grid as he was second at turn one. The opening two laps were not too kind to him as he made a couple of mistakes that cost him two positions.

As the race progressed, Bastianini managed to find the right feeling with his Desmosedici GP machine as he overtook Aleix Espargaró before chasing the leading duo of Martín and Bagnaia.

With seven laps left, Bastianini took advantage of a small mistake by his team-mate and moved up to second position, with a one-second gap to the front. Thanks to an unrivalled pace in the closing stages, he managed to get on his rival’s tail and take the lead on the penultimate lap – ultimately crossing the line with a 1.9secs margin.

This is Bastianini’s maiden double win, in what was MotoGP’s 75th anniversary.

Bagnaia enjoyed a perfect start and was in the lead as the MotoGP field entered turn one. The reigning world champion held onto first position until nine laps to go and, two laps later, he was also overtaken by his team-mate. In the closing stages, he could not keep the strong pace shown in the first half of the encounter due to grip issues.

Still, Bagnaia managed the situation and finished the race in third position.

With the tenth Grand Prix of the season drawing to a close, Bagnaia is currently second in the championship standings, three points away from Martín.

Bastianini consolidates third position and narrows the gap to the top down to 49 points. Ducati is sits strongly atop the manufacturers’ standings with 352 points, with the Ducati Lenovo Team leading the team standings (430 points).

The Ducati Lenovo Team will be back in action in a fortnight’s time at Spielberg, Austria, for the eleventh event of the 2024 MotoGP season.

“It was a difficult race, as I made a few mistakes in the first two laps and lost some ground,” said Bastianini afterwards.

“Then, I was able to find the right confidence to get back to the leading group: I bridged the gap first to Aleix (Espargaró), who was not an easy one to pass, and then to Bagnaia. In the last four-five laps, Jorge Martín was pushing really hard and it wasn’t easy to catch him. It’s a fantastic feeling to be back on top of the podium in a Sunday race.

“I’ve been working a lot on myself: I analysed the first half of the race – the positives and the negatives of it.

“Generally speaking, my pace has been strong until now, but obviously the qualifying performance surely had a negative impact on many occasions.

“I tried to work on the mental side of things in order to avoid being caught unprepared in this regard, and I hope I can continue this way.”

Photo courtesy Ducati

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MotoGP World Championship standings after round 10: