Bagnaia had to work his way through the pack from 16th on the grid but was able to jump to fifth at the pit stop at the end of lap five when it started raining – despite being hit by a double long lap penalty for accelerating in the Pit lane, together with Ducati team-mate Jack Miller.
The Italian finished fourth, falling just one point behind Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo to the top of the championship.
However, he found that the rain was lucky for him as the bike he started on was not working properly.
“I was lucky enough to change bikes because the first one didn’t work very well,” he said.
“So a bit of luck in this crazy race. I am happy because I finished fourth with these two long laps.
“I just entered [into pitlane] 3 km / h more than normal and it is right that they give me this penalty.
“But my pace was very strong. On Friday I told my team that I definitely prefer medium tires and today this choice worked well because my pace was very strong in the end and I regained many seconds ahead of the leaders.
“We made a good race, last year I had more problems in the wet.
“So I’m happy about it. We just have to check the data on what happened to the bike that I used in the dry all weekend because I started struggling a lot with this bike after the race.
“So we have to check the data for the next race.
“But we can be happy today. I’m second in the championship and just one point behind Fabio. “
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Petrucci is strengthened by the best result of the season
Last Sunday’s Le Mans winner Danilo Petrucci had his best race on the Tech 3 KTM after recovering from 17th place on the grid to fifth place.
Petrucci, who “reset” after a disappointing Friday after going the wrong way with the setup, believes a slightly wetter race could have earned him another podium at Le Mans.
“We certainly did a good reset on Friday because the direction we were taking didn’t work,” he said.
“There was a meeting where I talked about what could be improved and in fact something changed immediately.