MotoGP | Bagnaia: “Missed opportunity, the rear tyre worked after 15 laps”

After two second places a couple of weeks ago, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix seemed to be the Misano of redemption for Pecco Bagnaia. The Ducati rider signed the pole with a track record and also took the Sprint by force. For this reason he was seen as the big favorite also for today’s long race.

Unfortunately for him, reality was far from his expectations, because the reigning world champion started well this time, taking the lead at the first corner, but after four laps he was overtaken by both Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini, seeing them quickly pull away from him. The Piedmontese pointed the finger at a tire that took a whopping 15 laps to start working as expected, but the thing is particularly curious, because then once he got into the rhythm he set the fastest lap of the race, also proving to be the only one capable of going under 1’31”.

By now the first two were too far away to hope for victory, but to further complicate things a crash at turn 8 a few laps from the end, which once again complicated his path towards a possible hat-trick of world titles, given that he now finds himself once again 24 points behind Martin, who ultimately finished second behind “The Beast”.

“The state of mind is that I’m pissed off, it’s very easy. Not with Michelin, they can’t do anything about it. I can’t be angry with someone who does something, but doesn’t do it on purpose. But it pisses me off: you get pole, you win the Sprint and in the race you get a better start, being first on the first lap, and seeing yourself pass, with the others getting away from you by almost three and a half seconds because you can’t push, is something that really pisses me off. I had more, I was the fastest all weekend and when the tyre started working I was clearly the fastest again today. It’s yet another missed opportunity to be the championship leader”, said Bagnaia when he met with journalists at the end of the day.

When asked if he had ever had a tyre take so long to start working properly before, he said that what happened today reminded him of the conditions that led to his horrific crash in last year’s race in Barcelona.

“Usually, in the coldest conditions, like it was this morning, it takes a lap or two to work, and in any case in the Warm-Up on the second lap it was already perfect. I have never felt a situation like this in history, although I must say that last year, when I lay down on the second corner in Barcelona, ​​I had the same feeling in the warm-up lap. Even today, in fact, it happened to me on the last corner, where I risked falling practically without giving gas. The feeling was not the best, the difference is that in Barcelona there is no grip and here the feeling is excellent. The tyre only took 15 laps to work”.

He then went on to analyse the fall that led to his retirement, ultimately costing him at least 16 points that seemed to be safe, given that he had a wide margin over Marc Marquez who was following him in fourth position.

“To compensate a little for the slowed race pace of the rear tyre, I pushed hard on the brakes throughout the race, wearing out the front tyre a bit. In fact, during the lap of the crash I braked 18 metres earlier than my best, but I lost the front tyre while I was still straight. You can see quite clearly from the images that there were some strange vibrations that led to the crash. We have a lot of things to analyse”.

Now he has six appointments left to try to close the gap on “Martinator”: “24 points are 1 more than before arriving in Misano two races ago. We could have left here as championship leaders, taking advantage of Jorge’s mistake in the last race, so we find ourselves far behind once again. But in the end we do what we can do, with the idea of ​​always trying to win them all”.

Finally, Pecco was asked his opinion on Bastianini’s last-lap overtaking of Martin, in which the rider from Rimini took the rider from Madrid off the track at turn 4, extending his braking distance. Some, including the Spaniard, said Race Direction should have taken action. Bagnaia, on the other hand, said it was a normal racing incident.

“I see it as a race overtaking and I’m not saying that because I’m biased. Receiving it obviously pisses you off, but it’s something that happened to me with Jorge several times last year. In India, where he was even more aggressive than Enea today, and in Qatar at the start of the Sprint. I think that if you do certain maneuvers, you have to accept that they will be done to you too. I see it as a normal race overtaking. Aggressive, but fair.”

“You’re on the last lap of the race, on a track where it’s difficult to overtake and when you’re riding at a stratospheric pace. Jorge was wide at the entrance, then he tried to come towards the inside but Enea was already there. That’s why Enea had to let go of the brakes, otherwise they wouldn’t have even gone long”, he concluded.