The Asian trip went in the best way for Pecco Bagnaia. Of the 74 points up for grabs between Mandalika and Motegi, the Ducati rider took home 65. A haul that allowed him to reduce the gap to Jorge Martin to 10 points, which was 24 points after the second weekend of Misano.
The trend is therefore positive for the reigning world champion, who was the star of the Japanese Grand Prix with a double and Sunday’s success, his eighth of the season, has elevated him even further into the history of MotoGP: before him In fact, in the era of four-stroke motorcycles only sacred monsters such as Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner had managed to achieve at least eight victories in the same season. Among other things, it was also the 900th overall victory of an Italian rider in the MotoGP.
The Piedmontese, however, pays more attention to the matter and the world championship ranking, with the intention of trying to continue like this also at Phillip Island, a track which on paper, however, could be more favorable to “Martinator”, today however sensational in limiting the damage with a comeback which took him from 11th place on the grid to the second finish. This, however, is what can be read from the first words that Bagnaia uttered when he arrived at parc fermé.
“We managed to gain 11 points this weekend and I think it was the maximum, so I’m very happy. Today Jorge was much stronger than in recent days, so I tried to manage the advantage, because it wasn’t easy at all to be consistent. The pace it was incredible, especially in the next ten laps. Now we have to think about the next race with the same ambition and the same strategy, trying to continue like this,” said Bagnaia.
Once he spoke to Sky Sport MotoGP, Pecco talked about his race in more detail, underlining that it was more difficult than it might have seemed from the outside, given that he led from start to finish after a great start. Only on a couple of occasions did Martin try to make up for it, especially in the second part of the race but he was always able to respond despite also having some difficulties in braking.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo credit: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“It was a fairly complicated race. The pace was extremely fast and in the last laps I had a bit of difficulty braking: I couldn’t stop anymore and I had to change the way I entered the corners a bit, especially the map strategy and engine braking. I struggled a bit, but then I managed to open the gap a bit and on the last lap I was calmer, it was a perfect race weekend, in which we succeeded to collect the maximum points. Now we have to continue like this”, explained Bagnaia.
In any case, today he set a truly infernal pace for the race, so he was asked how difficult it is to never lose concentration when you push yourself so hard: “It’s tough, because you also know that you shouldn’t make mistakes. When you’re in fight, the pace is slower, so you can manage a little more. It’s not easy to overtake, because if you have a similar pace it’s difficult to even get close to the one in front. I don’t know how much faster it was compared to two years ago, but we set incredible times: running in a high 1’44” throughout the race was something crazy”.
His duel with Martin, at the same time, was compared to those between Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo when they challenged each other and both were riding the Yamaha: “They also made fewer mistakes, so they were almost always first and second. It’s stressful though, because it doesn’t take much to gain or lose a lot of points. In the end, ten points seem like a small amount, but they’re not. We need to continue working in this way: this weekend we were really very strong, because we had a small hiccup in qualifying. but otherwise everything was perfect.”
Finally, he returned to the braking difficulties he encountered in the final part of the race: “We’re braking harder and harder and the 355 mm discs are almost no longer enough. It’s reaching an incredible level. I had some corners where he was getting close to me. the lever a little, so I had to adjust it very often. However, at other points I couldn’t keep the rear tire on the ground, so I had to brake the bike only with the front and the tire suffered quite a bit. In the last laps I had to change precisely the approach to braking and finding lines that allowed me to slow down better, because I was struggling more and more at Turn 5 and Turn 11”, he concluded.
#MotoGP #Bagnaia #points #arent #continue