The Spaniard finished 0.933s clear of South Africa’s Brad Binder in second, with Luca Marini of Italy third. Bagnaia placed seventh.

The flying Martin reached the first corner in the lead and was never troubled as Bagnaia suffered a poor start from the second row, dropping back to ninth by the end of the opening lap.

Bagnaia began to find some pace a third of the way through the 13-lap dash and by the end of lap five was back up to seventh.

However, he struggled to make any inroads on Marco Bezzecchi’s Ducati-VR46 in front of him as Martin stretched his lead to more than 1.5s with two laps to go.

The result leaves Bagnaia on 369 points going into tomorrow’s 26-lap grand prix, where he will again start sixth on the grid, with pole-sitter Martin now on 351 after picking up 12 points for the sprint win.

Martin began the weekend 27 points behind with four legs of the 20-race season to go though he also started from pole a week ago in Australia before his gamble on a soft rear tyre backfired badly.

Badly fading rubber allowed him to be overtaken on a dramatic final lap by four riders, including Bagnaia on a factory Ducati.

The tyre blunder came just a week after Martin crashed while leading the Indonesian MotoGP to gift Bagnaia a sixth victory in 2023 and an 18-point lead in a championship duel that looks set to go down to the wire.