Francesco Bagnaia<\/a> told MotoGP.com. \u201cLooking at what happened to Alex, I just send him and his family strength and a hug.<\/p>\n\u201cAnd also to Johann. I was there, I saw what happened. I saw that the situation was quite critical. And I just hope that his pain could have stopped sooner, because it was tough to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former double MotoGP champion explained: \u201cWhen I started to enter [the corner], I felt the impact, but I thought it was finished. Then I started to feel that the rear [wheel] was stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I arrived into the gravel, the impact was quite huge, but I didn’t think that someone was attached to my bike.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tough when I saw Johann there, we had a bit of trauma [trying to help him], me and Luca, but I just hope that he can feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Zarco was later diagnosed with damage to the anterior and posterior cruciate ligament and a \u2018small fibula tear in the ankle area\u2019.<\/p>\n
![\"Pecco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1316570_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Pecco Bagnaia, 2026 Catalan MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
Bagnaia then lined up for the third and final race start, using his spare bike, used tyres and suffering the aftereffects of his own heavy impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel in pain and a bit sick,\u201d Bagnaia said after the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you start a race with the other bike, that I didn’t use all weekend, with a used front tyre from qualifying and a pre-heated medium rear\u2026 Honestly, I didn’t expect much!<\/p>\n
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\u201cI started well and, with my physical condition, I said, okay, I’ll go full that I can.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut after three laps I started to feel pain and was dizzy when I was starting to brake. So it was a bit strange, my feeling on the bike, I just tried to survive until the last lap.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Pecco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1316576_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Pecco Bagnaia, 2026 Catalan MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
Bagnaia took the chequered flag in fourth place, 4.3s behind race winner Fabio di Giannantonio.<\/p>\n
However, runner-up Joan Mir was among those later demoted for low tyre pressure, promoting Bagnaia to third.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSurely, in terms of championship, it’s great to finish on the podium, but not the way I wanted and not the way I deserve,\u201d Bagnaia said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurely, if someone is deserving it, it is the team that is working a lot. they are giving their maximum to reach this kind of results consistently and I know that we’ll arrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a difficult weekend, but we finished with sixth place yesterday and third today, so keep working and the result will come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bagnaia was unsure if he would be fit to test on Monday but, as of midday, had completed 12 laps for fourth on the timesheets.<\/p>\n
Alex Marquez is due to leave hospital om Monday afternoon, after surgery to stabilise a collarbone fracture.<\/p>\n
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The Gresini rider also suffered a \u2018marginal fracture\u2019 to the C7 vertebra.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pecco Bagnaia emerged from a dramatic day of race stoppages, heavy accidents and post-race penalties to secure Ducati…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,7607,15612,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-678721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-francesco-bagnaia","tag-johann-zarco","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Luca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779113000_362_2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n