MotoGP | Bagnaia: “I’m not one to retreat, but it was dangerous like this”

Pecco Bagnaia is the Sunday man, without a shadow of a doubt. On the final day of every grand prix he always manages to turn around even the weekends that don’t seem to start off on the right foot. However, at Le Mans the script was not repeated and, after an excellent Friday, Saturday was more complicated.

In qualifying he slipped at the end after grabbing second position, just a few thousandths behind poleman Jorge Martin. In the race it seemed that the two were the only ones able to proceed with an unattainable pace, but instead the Sprint immediately took a bad turn for the reigning champion, who sadly returned to the pits due to an unspecified problem on his GP24.

Pecco runs into another zero in the short race, but this time due to his own mistake, because he paid dearly for the mistake in qualifying. After the crash, he was forced to use the second bike in the Sprint, but his feeling was not the same as that which had allowed him to get closer to Martin: “I always ride with both bikes without problems. It’s true that they aren’t always exactly identical, but you adapt. Unfortunately, today, adapting was more complicated than expected. It wasn’t working as it should have and I couldn’t get it to work… Ever since the formation lap.”

“It would have also been possible to use the first motorbike, but as a precaution, after a crash, you usually use another one because you can’t imagine something like that,” explained Pecco, who cannot give a precise explanation for what happened. “I don’t know what happened, I immediately felt something strange, already on the formation lap I went long at Turn 7. At the start, the bike wheelied a lot, it was hard to do more or less anything. I lost the front at Turn 6 before going wide at Turn 7. Almost under acceleration. Holeshot? No, that worked well. I can’t say exactly what it was, but we will analyze everything for tomorrow.”

“Even between grip and electronics it wasn’t the best, but it’s always a dog chasing its tail. We need to analyze everything well and understand better. I’m angrier. There are two Sprints that we are unable to finish, one due to a contact and another due to a problem caused by an error on my part this morning. You make me angry. I retired because something wasn’t right… It was dangerous. I’m not that kind of person who wants to withdraw. Furthermore, it would have been better to continue to have information for tomorrow instead of stopping”, confesses Bagnaia.

But the reigning world champion does not lose hope in view of the long race, his strong point: “The positive thing for tomorrow is that our pace is good to fight for the first two positions. Jorge and I are the only two who can go faster here at the moment. He managed to do it again this afternoon, I didn’t, but the race would have been between the two of us. Tomorrow will be the same, but we have to put everything in order first. The rain? Instead of between us two it becomes between six or seven, so we’ll have to see.”