Francesco Bagnaia secured victory in the MotoGP Catalan GP, putting an end to the bad luck he had been experiencing in Barcelona – including yesterday’s Sprint race, where he crashed while leading.
The Ducati rider spoke at a press conference about his approach to this race, in which he outperformed Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati): ‘I started well and tried to set my pace, but I saw that Jorge and Pedro [Acosta] were pushing a lot. I tried to follow them for one lap, but I felt that for my tyres was a bit too much and I just waited a bit more. And after more or less ten laps I started to gain the speed with Jorge. It wasn’t easy, because managing the rear was a good thing, but also the front [tyre] was dropping, so it wasn’t easy’.
In Bagnaia’s view, there was one aspect in particular that set him apart from Martín in the final laps: ‘In the last part of the race, I think I was really able to be constant and fast on the entry of the corner. And that was the biggest point between me and Jorge, he was struggling a bit more on the entry’.
After what happened in the Sprint race, the 2022 and 2023 champion admitted that he wanted to redeem himself, especially in turn 5 where the crash occurred: ‘I’m very happy, because I was very angry and disappointed about yesterday. It was important for me to do something in turn 5 today, because it was important to forgive what happened yesterday. And overtaking there was the best place, because I was very strong in turn 4, I was gaining a lot of time on the entry and with the corner speed. So I desired to go in there and I was just praying to not lose the front’.