Francesco Bagnaia was dealt yet another blow to his chances of defending his MotoGP title following his crash from the lead in the Catalan MotoGP Sprint race.
Francesco Bagnaia suffered one of the most disappointing moments in the Catalan MotoGP Sprint as the Ducati rider was leading comfortably before crashing on the final lap and having to retire from the race.
The Italian rider was ready to break his streak of failing to win sprint races before losing the front end of his Ducati at turn five on the last lap. He provided a few details on what 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,” the reigning MotoGP world champion said.
“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’.
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.”
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.”
Bagnaia also played down any suggestions that he lost focus, saying: “I was 100% focused and I know how to win. It was my kind of win because I was in control with a lot of tyre [left] and with much pace and was doing everything perfectly.
“It is very curious when you look at my data because when I crashed it is really strange in that kind of situation. It was also strange that every rider that was leading crashed today. This was strange. We have to understand this for tomorrow.”
Aleix Espargaro went on to win for the third consecutive race in Barcelona as a result of Bagnaia’s mistake and after the race the latter was asked about several mistakes that Espargaro apparently alluded to him making. However, he refuted the idea he was making mistakes prior to going down at turn five.
“I had a little issue with the bike, but I honestly I don’t know which mistakes Aleix saw, because I was just faster,” he said.
“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.”
