From -24 to -21
It seemed hard to imagine on Friday, but Pecco Bagnaia he ends the Mandalika weekend with fewer points behind Jorge Martin than he had when he arrived in Indonesia. From -24 to -21despite today the Spaniard from the Prima Pramac team was uncatchable for everyone and deservedly won (dominating) the race. Third place, however, leaves the reigning world champion more than satisfied when looking at the general picture of the championship.
“If we consider the start of the weekend I can be satisfied – declared the red #1 to the microphones of Sky Sports MotoGP – we certainly didn’t think we would recover points this weekend and we recovered three. This is the positive side. But after yesterday’s race, with the confidence I had, I was sure I would get off to a good start. Instead, once again, we were missing something. We need to understand what is happening to us in the departuresbecause while before I was really strong and could do them all the same, lately it has become a mess. My bike always slips and even today it first wheelied me and then pushed me, and I lost positions again.”
Uphill weekend
The difficult start affected the entire first part of the race for the centaur from Chivasso: “The first lap I tried not to do any more stupid things and that’s why two others passed me, but considering how tough the race was, finishing third was positive. I struggled a lot to pass Bez, because the GP23 has more traction. In turn 7-8 it went away. Instead, when I was behind Franco it was a little easier, having the same bike. I used the lowering gear to have more thrust during acceleration and then it was easier to overtake“.
The tire question
Speaking of ‘knock-on effects’, it is clear that the complicated start to the weekend had repercussions on Bagnaia’s Indonesian trip: “On Friday we completely lost the second round for reasons that cannot be said and we didn’t use the rear mid again until this morning, when I was making a good run on the last lap. I felt good but up to that point I had struggled to complete a lap for various reasons, partly due to mistakes and partly due to traffic. I felt good in the race – continued Bagnaia, analyzing the behavior of the medium tire – but at a certain point I was easily overtaken and I struggled to be close to the others when braking”.
“As soon as I did I managed to get through – concluded the Ducati rider – but it was a fairly complicated race. Our bike is extremely competitive but it takes a couple of laps more to bring the rear tire up to temperature compared to the GP23. We noticed it this weekend too. If you start from the front you can compensate when braking and entering corners, while if you start from the back you struggle more because you can’t do the braking you would like. You have to watch out for the riders in front and keep a margin, so it gets more complicated. When you’re alone everything becomes easier“.
#Bagnaia #3rd #golden #place #thought #recovering #points
