In Valencia with the title in hand
Francesco Bagnaia will present himself in Valencia with 21 points ahead of Jorge Martin. The Spanish driver today had to deal with a defective tire, finishing in tenth position, while Pecco finished second behind a splendid Fabio Di Giannantonio. There was, however, a great thrill for the reigning champion, who in Turn-1 found himself sucked into the wake of the Gresini driver after having been overtaken by the latter the previous lap. Bagnaia grazed the rear tire of his teammate, avoiding what would have been a sensational mistake. Already in 2021 Bagnaia had seen his final sprint to victory compromised by a similar mistake, while a year ago in Turn-1 he hit Martin, losing the front. This time he didn’t pay the price also because the first two had made a gap behind them.
The words of Francesco Bagnaia on Sky Sport MotoGP
“The last two laps were dramatic. It was bad because I didn’t expect to be sucked into the wake so much. I even took off to avoid the problem, but when I braked I got caught. We also touched each other with the wing of my fork, which in fact broke, but we could pass a coin. You have to have luck every now and then and today we had it. I blocked the front, but I was lucky to have opened the gap a lot because when you find yourself in the slipstream and get sucked in you lose the load from the wings and I got scared. When you make the transition from closing the throttle to braking you accelerate, and it’s a horrible feeling. We were lucky and you have to have it sometimes. I managed to get it very sideways, and had all the load on the front, which I think was what saved me.
“It’s very difficult to draw conclusions because here we had a particular tyre, the rp4, which is a particular compound. We don’t use it often but I’m happy with it. I had a great time on Friday, as I did yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon, however, no, but today in the race I did what I would have expected yesterday between the pace, managing it and taking advantage of the bike’s pick-up. Yesterday there was no way to do it. In any case we were good because we could let ourselves be influenced by the situation and get fooled, so much so that this morning we have something in the warm up. However, we told ourselves that yesterday it wasn’t the bike that was the problem, so we went back and everything worked as it should. The important thing was to start strong and take advantage of the start to put myself in front, and everything went quite smoothly apart from the near-disaster in Turn-1 at the end in the wake of Di Giannantonio. My goal today was to win, regardless of who was behind me. I tried everything to win, but I made that mistake that didn’t let me. In any case it would have been very tough because Diggia was really strong, as he was all weekend, and we tried to do our best.”
“I managed a little not to go too much on the rear tire to have it at the end, and we did a great job because I did my best lap before my mistake and everything was perfect, but the goal was to win. As soon as I managed not to catch him, I turned around and saw that the others were behind me and said ‘fuck it’. The points earned are not many, considering the 37 that can be earned in a weekend, but we are in an advantageous situation. Jorge will have to risk a lot in Valencia where he is strong, but I won in 2021. It is a track where I am really fast and it will be a good fight. The unknown will be the weather because we are in December, but it will be a good fight and it will be important to be fast already on Saturday for the sprint, which will be fundamental.”
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