Pramac Ducati’s Pecco Bagnaia had to push through the pain in his broken leg for the last four laps of yesterday’s Misano MotoGP to secure a podium finish.

The young Italian, part of Valentino Rossi’s Sky VR46 Academy, is still recovering from the Jerez crash but said he felt as strong as he did in Jerez where he was also headed for the rostrum until he crashed.

“The most important thing was to restart where I left off because in Jerez we were very strong then also in the Brno first session, but then I broke my leg and everything was very hard,” said Bagnaia, speaking at the track.

“It has been an incredible month and I have worked a lot, so I have to say thank you to everyone who worked with me, to prepare. When I saw the leg was OK on Friday, on Saturday I tried to push and the feeling was the same as Jerez so everything came to me more easily.

“One week ago I was not expecting a podium but in the race everything was nice, I recovered the positions.

“I started to think about the podium when I overtook Vale, because the pace was very good but then the leg started having pain so it was difficult to remain constant.

“On the last lap I had to give up a bit because the pain was too much and I could hear the sound of the Suzuki behind me, so I was scared on the last corner.

“The hardest moment was the last four laps beca