What a challenge among the leaders
The Pecco Bagnaia’s streak of successes at the Red Bull Ring does not stop. After the victories in the 2022 and 2023 GPs and in the 2023 Sprint, the champion from Chivasso continued his winning streak also in this year’s short race. The real Fireworks were seen in the first two lapswhen Bagnaia and Jorge Martin dueled fiercely for the lead. Then, after the Long Lap Penalty inflicted by the stewards on the Spaniard, the race of the #1 Ducati rider was more ‘downhill’.
“The moment Martin went long I said to myself ‘must lose a second’ – Bagnaia explained to the microphones of Sky Sport MotoGPrevealing extreme lucidity in the live reading of the race – and instead I saw that it was always at 0.5 or 0.3. At that point I thought ‘either he took a crazy ride to be there already, or they give him something’. Then came the Long Lap. At that point I stopped pushing because the soft rear was very much at the limit, especially in the right-hand corners, so I simply preferred to get to the finish line“.
Pace Management
Bagnaia’s other opponent on this day was Marc Márquezwhich however he fell down when he was in second position and was trying to mend fences on the leader: “When Marc fell I raised my times – Bagnaia commented again – I had a four-second advantage and that was fine. With Martin it was nice because it was a lap and two corners of very intense battle. We did the fastest lap fighting like that. Rivalry? We are fighting for the same goal and we are the two fastest. But today the absolute priority was to be first, because if you stayed behind there was the problem of the front tire pressure, so it was also a fight to have 3/4 clean laps in front. We fought hard“.
“I pay attention when they explain the rules to us – Bagnaia finally concluded, returning to comment on the penalty inflicted on Martin and which he had foreseen – usually when you go long and cut the chicane, even if Jorge lost time, that’s the rule. When I saw that he was 0.5 behind, I wondered if he had lost a second or not. I had done ‘28.7, so it seemed difficult to me. In the end it was as I had imagined. Marquez? I was 1.6 ahead and I tried to do a bit slower lap because I was managing the mapsalso because I needed data for tomorrow. I wanted to understand if with the less downloaded map I could still go fast. As soon as he recovered some time I immediately put the other map back”.
#Bagnaia #show #Martin #sold #skin #dearly
