Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi cut the figure of a proud father at MotorLand Aragón on Sunday after Pecco Bagnaia claimed his debut MotoGP victory in stunning style.

The Petronas man both anticipated and fulfilled a difficult race, at one of his worst tracks on the calendar - finishing 19th and only ahead of younger brother Luca Marini - but was quick to focus no the positive story of the day, his protégée’s success.

“I want to say first of all that I am really, really happy for Pecco,” Rossi said proudly. “First of all, personally because I am a great friend of Pecco, and we stay a lot, a lot of time together during the weekend, during the week at home. So I have to say my congratulation because the first victory in MotoGP is a moment that a motorcycle rider never forgets.

“Also a victory like this with a battle to the last lap is something great. I think that he deserve this, because all this year he was very fast, and he arrived the Ducati in a fantastic way. Yesterday I said to him ‘is the moment, is the moment to win’ because he is always very fast but sometimes he was unlucky with the tyres but today is the day.

“I try yesterday to hypnotise him to say to him, hard/soft, hard/soft, hard/soft, like this, because sometimes Pecco make some strange decision for the tyres and I saw him this morning and I said another time!

“I’m very happy for him, and secondly, I’m also very proud of the work of the [VR46] Academy, because we take Pecco, from the Moto3, and we help Pecco to reach this level, and we are very, very proud from the Academy. At the end, their destiny is in their own hands, because you need to be a strong rider but we are very proud to help him to arrive at this level. Also for Italy is great because Pecco winning with the Ducati is something fantastic.

“I already saw a little bit in the highlights and I saw a fantastic battle but Pecco stay always in front. He ride the bike from Friday morning in a fantastic way and also in Silverstone, he was very fast. This is the moment, is the moment to win and I’m very, very happy for him, because, first of all, he’s a great guy. And I’m very happy.”

While running at the back for the entirety of the AragónGP, Rossi spent a large portion of the 23-lap race in the vicinity of ex-teammate and now Aprilia rider Maverick Vinales, with Italian already seeing the potential of the new partnership.

“I saw Maverick improve very much during the race. In the second half he had a quite good pace, not so far from the guys in front, and he was able to improve. I don’t speak with Maverick directly but I hear that he had some problem in braking, braking and entering. In fact in that area he’s a bit in trouble with Aprilia, but I think that the bike has a good potential and Maverick is a top rider so I think that in the next races he will be very strong.”