Ducati’s Bagnaia wins Barcelona sprint to take season to last race

Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia celebrates winning the sprint race in Barcelona on Saturday. Pic/AFP

Francesco Bagnaia produced a commanding performance to win Saturday's sprint at the Barcelona MotoGP, ensuring that the battle for the world championship title would go to the last race of the season.

Championship leader Jorge Martin finished third behind Bagnaia's Ducati-Lenovo teammate Enea Bastianini and will take a reduced 19-point lead into Sunday's grand prix.

"Job done for today, but tomorrow we need to repeat what we did," Bagnaia told TNT. "I just tried to be smooth in the first sector. As soon as I was leading I knew my pace was good enough to open a gap. That was the objective for today. I didn't need to push too much to open the gap. Jorge did a fantastic job so it's fantastic that it's like this. But let's see tomorrow."

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