MotoGP | Bagnaia: “2nd and recover points at Misano 2? I won’t sign, I want to win!”

While the third wheel Marc Marquez seems to have really taken a liking to winning, the second-place rule has been in place in the title fight for at least a couple of races. In Aragon, Jorge Martin was the one to pull away to +23 with a second place, taking advantage of Pecco Bagnaia’s accident with Alex Marquez. In Misano, however, fate smiled on the reigning world champion, who took advantage of a strategic error by the rider from Madrid, who returned to the pits to change bikes at the first signs of rain, to get back to -7.

Faced with a Marquez who is as always almost unbeatable when it comes to taking risks with slicks on a wet track, having recovered 19 points on “Martinator” (yesterday he had lost 3 in the Sprint) is the most important thing, even if in the home race it always stings a bit not to have been able to make his fans happy with a victory.

“In hindsight, yes. I tried until the end to win, but it wasn’t possible. Unfortunately, when it started to rain I lost a lot of time, because I couldn’t understand the conditions well and I saw Morbidelli fall. In any case, Marc was very strong today in the last part of the race and I wasn’t able to exploit our potential, so we’ll try again in two weeks,” Bagnaia told Italian journalists at the end of the press conference.

“Today it was fundamental to take points, because from the moment I saw Jorge come back I understood that he would not score points or at least that he would be far behind. From there, I tried to get to the end without taking too many risks, but I tried to win as long as I could. For the fans, a win would have been better, but if I think about how I was seven days ago it is a great result, especially for having recovered 19 points today”, he added.

At this point he was asked if he would sign to repeat a result of this type in two weeks, when the race will be held again in Romagna, but the Ducati rider seems to have very clear ideas on the matter: “I’m not signing because I believe in myself and I always want to win. Today it’s true that I recovered 19 points with a second place, but if I have to decide, I always prefer to try to win. Today’s result was great in terms of the championship. If you had asked me before this weekend, I would have signed, but next weekend I want to win”.

Inevitably, he was also asked to comment on Martin’s choice to go back to get the bike with rain tires, which turned out to be a mistake, given that the rain stopped falling within a few minutes: “Maybe it was a bit impulsive, but it could have happened, because on the lap we did it was raining quite a lot. It was probably influenced by the fact that Morbidelli crashed, because we entered the first corner and it was sliding quite a bit. These are very complicated situations, he tried and it didn’t pay off. Honestly, I didn’t even think for a second about stopping.”

At that moment, however, he understood that he also had to change his strategy: “It changed quite a bit, because from then on I knew I couldn’t make any more mistakes. I just tried to get to the end and bring home as many points as possible, which would have been a victory, but I didn’t have enough to win today.”

Now we also have to keep an eye on Marc Marquez, who with his second consecutive victory has closed to -53 from the leader Martin. It is also true, however, that his successes came in very particular conditions: in Aragon with very little grip on the track and today with the rain that allowed him to get back into the game when Pecco and Jorge had already taken off.

“Today without the rain he would have been much further back, but only because of his starting position (ninth), but he had been going very strong all weekend. In a normal situation we would have started first, second and third, me, Martin and Marc. But without the rain in today’s race we would have finished first and second, me and Martin. Then we need to understand in what order, but it was the only chance to win”, he concluded.