MotoGP | Bagnaia: “I went crazy on the first lap, but I had to stay in front”

The others will exalt themselves in the Sprints, but the king of MotoGP on Sunday is always him, Pecco Bagnaia. The reigning world champion seemed to be in difficulty in yesterday's short race in Qatar, which he ended in fourth place with annoying vibrations in the rear triggered by an increase in tire pressures.

As always, he and Ducati proved to be the best of all at reacting. In the Warm-Up the team made a change on its Desmosedici GP, but Pecco also adapted his riding style to the problems encountered yesterday.

But above all, the Piedmontese understood that the key to achieving the feat was to get in front right from the very start and showed off a spectacular first lap, taking the lead from the second row in the space of just four corners (32″ to be precise) with a great start and two aggressive overtakings on Brad Binder and Jorge Martin. Once in the lead, he maintained a pace between the low 1'53″ and the low 1'52″ which made him practically unassailable, launching him towards his 19 ° success in the premier class and towards the leadership of the world championship ranking after this first round.

“The strategy was the same as yesterday, but yesterday at the start I wasn't able to have a good clutch release. The biggest difference was how I managed the performance, because yesterday I was trying to do everything on the run and this chattering was created incredible. Today however I tried to do something different, which worked much better. Surely yesterday's Sprint also helped us identify what the problem was and solve it this morning in the Warm-Up. We did an excellent job this time too “, Bagnaia told Sky Sport MotoGP after equaling Barry Sheene's 19 wins in the premier class.

When asked specifically what he tried to do differently, he explained: “I never overdid it with the rear tyre, because yesterday was a disaster. It was essential to brake very hard and wait a moment longer with the gas to try not to use the rear too much, so I arrived at the end of the race perfect. I started a bit slower and then started to slow down with the times. Every time someone got a little closer, I immediately tried to speed up again. everything was perfect, my team did an incredible job again.”

The first lap of the boarding, however, was the key on which he had decided to try to build this success: “We had studied the first lap with the team, thinking of trying to exploit the tires much more than what would have been necessary: It was too important to get in front, because yesterday the tire pressure had risen too much. But it was fundamental and as soon as I saw the gap on Binder I threw myself in.”

“Then Martin was a bit too conservative at Turn 3 and I overtook him when braking. But in any case I would have done everything to finish the first lap in the lead and from there start to manage a bit, because it was too important “Yesterday I lost in braking, because when you're in the slipstream, especially on the KTM, you struggle more, so I tried to act crazy straight away to be first”, he added.

Between the setting change and the way he adapted his riding, however, he seems to have given more or less the same weight to both things: “Certainly riding in this way helped more, but the setting was behind me , because I was able to use the rear tire less. Let's say that everything came as a result.”