Francesco Bagnaia had one of the most frustrating experiences in the Sprint race of the MotoGP Catalan GP. The Ducati rider was leading comfortably until he crashed on the last lap and had to retire.
Bagnaia has some insights into what might have caused the crash: ‘I waited for the bike in the box and I just stayed in the box for one hour to analyze everything. Because when you can’t understand properly why you crashed, it’s better to analyze everything. It looks like that entering slower with the same brakes can make you crash. In normal conditions it cannot happen, but here the grip level is a disaster and it can happen. So we also have to analyze it, to understand it, and try to be more careful in this kind of situation for tomorrow – because the race is longer, hotter, and it will be important to finish’.
Frustrated with yet another missed opportunity in a Sprint race when everything was going well, Bagnaia emphasized the importance of finishing the main race: ‘It’s already three weeks in a row that on Saturday we are really strong for the Sprint race, but we are not finishing for problems or crashing. We lost another great opportunity today. I was the fastest, I was leading, I was cruising until the checkered flag, but wasn’t enough. For tomorrow it will be important to take the positives from today, that are a lot. But finishing the race will be very important because it looks like in this track I have some problems to finish races, but it will be important to do it’.
After the race, Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) – who ended up winning – commented that he saw the Italian making some mistakes. However, Bagnaia believes this wasn’t the case: ‘I had a little issue with the bike, but I honestly I don’t know which mistakes Aleix saw, because I was just faster. It’s true that exiting from turn 5 in the lap before I had a problem with the gearbox that we are solving, but apart from that I didn’t any other mistakes’.
On the other hand, Bagnaia talked about his approach to Saturday’s race: ‘As soon as I saw the way there were pushing, I just said to myself: «I don’t care, let’s see what they will do». My strategy was just to try to be as precise as possible with the rear tyre. In the last six laps I was much, much faster than the others. I think in this track is also very important to manage in the Sprint’.