Expectations were probably higher the day before, because in “his” Misano Enea Bastianini has always been very fast. But given how things turned out after qualifying, the Ducati rider can probably see the glass half full at the end of the weekend of the Grand Prix of San Marino and the Riviera di Rimini.
Once again, it was a qualifying session that went worse than expected that complicated his life, because in today’s MotoGP it is never easy to recover from eighth place on the grid. However, the rider from Rimini managed to patch things up, finishing fourth in the Sprint and clawing his way to the lowest step of the podium in today’s long race, characterized by the rain that came to shuffle the cards for a few minutes after the first seven laps.
After struggling today to get the better of the KTMs in the early stages, for “Beast” the most critical aspect of today’s race was the choice of rear tyre. While the other big names were all on the medium, he did not find the slightest feeling with this solution and was in fact forced to mount the soft. The drop suffered in the second part of the race, however, prevented him from trying to stay with Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia until the end.
“Let’s say I knew from the start that it could be like this. Yesterday I had a very good start and I was hoping for another miracle, but this time I was a bit more crowded with the KTMs. But overall it was a good race. My only choice here was to use the soft rear tyre and I went ahead with it, but it wasn’t the right choice. The medium was definitely a little better but, as I said, unfortunately I haven’t felt comfortable with that since Friday”.
Enea Bastianini, Ducati Team
Photo credit: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
When asked if he would make the same choice today, even with hindsight, he replied: “Yes, because I didn’t feel good with the medium. When we put the soft we dropped the times by a second, so we need to understand why. Compared to others I felt it much more. If the conditions allow, in tomorrow’s test it will be interesting to try to understand this thing and do some laps with the medium to find a way to be able to use it, because today it made the difference”.
Enea is among those who made the right choice to stay on the track when the rain came, since after a few minutes it immediately stopped and the track dried out: “It helped a little, but it could have gone differently. You also need a bit of luck sometimes. In the end we stayed inside, but it was a really difficult condition, because the bike was moving a bit everywhere. Especially on the kerbs I lost it at least a couple of times. But in the end it went well”.
Among those who made mistakes is the leader Jorge Martin and this allowed him to close the gap in the standings to 62 points. Which are still a lot, but not enough to extinguish the dream of the world championship: “I believe in it more than when I arrived here, even if it is not easy to compete with the riders who are up there. This lap it went well, because Jorge made the wrong choice. I certainly couldn’t have done more than that today, I arrived right at the limit, but I believe in it”.
This weekend he had the chance to battle often with the KTMs, studying the bike he will ride next year and which has been complicating his comebacks a bit lately: “It’s definitely difficult to overtake them. Or at least it’s always the bike I have the most difficulty overtaking. Then in reality I also see some shortcomings, which I will certainly report on later, but not yet”.
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