A second place in the free practice sessions. A fourth place in qualifying. An eighth place in the sprint and a retirement in the race. The weekend just ended was yet another one full of ups and downs for our Pecco.
Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher, once said that the nature of man is not to always progress; life has its highs and lows. Our Suomy Rider, Pecco Bagnaia, knows this well, coming off the penultimate MotoGP race weekend. Everything seemed to start under good auspices, but unfortunately, both the Sprint Race and the main race left him deeply disappointed, as well as his fans. The epilogue came during Sunday’s race, when he crashed on the eleventh lap while holding fourth position.
SPRINT RACE
The enthusiasm in the pits, among fans and within the team, was palpable: Bagnaia started the afternoon free practice session well, securing fourth position in the opening minutes. After slipping to the edge of the top ten, Pecco managed to climb back up to second place thanks to an excellent time attack, just 30 thousandths of a second off the fastest lap of the day.
“This morning we made a mistake in choosing the front tire. I struggled a bit because the bike tended to go wide in some corners, and I couldn’t get it to slow down properly under braking or let it flow smoothly. This afternoon, things went better: we started with the softs to gather some feedback from the bike, but I also felt comfortable with the hard front. In the last time attack, we managed to set a good lap without pushing too much. All in all, I’d say the situation looks positive at the moment.”
The first signs of Pecco’s struggle to keep up with the fastest riders appeared during qualifying. The clock placed him fourth on the grid — encouraging, though not outstanding. In the Sprint Race, he immediately lost one position at the first corner, and due to a lack of grip, especially in the final stages, he slipped back to eighth place.
RACE
At the start, the race seemed to mirror the Sprint Race, with Pecco losing one position right away. Fortunately, by the end of the first lap, Bagnaia had reclaimed fourth place. Our rider then found himself riding alone, aiming to stretch his lead over the chasers to have a safety margin towards the end. However, on the eleventh lap perhaps due to entering a corner faster than before he lost the front at Turn 10 and crashed out, ending this penultimate round of the championship with a DNF.
“The Sprint didn’t go as we’d hoped. I wore the tyres out a lot in the early laps and, in the end, I got passed at the exit of the last turn. It was a wrong evaluation on my side and we need to do some more work ahead of the race. Today’s set-up was good in the fast corners, but I was lacking a bit of rear grip. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the most of FP2 so we continued with this configuration. At the end, the grip was non-existent: I tried to manage it throughout the Sprint, but unsuccessfully. Tomorrow’s warm up will be very important to improve the situation and we’ll do our best in the race.”
Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – Sprint Race 8°
“After yesterday’s grip issues, today I was simply trying to stay with the frontrunners. I gave it my all, but unfortunately they were faster than me. My margin to the riders behind was increasing, but then I crashed: I entered turn ten a bit faster than usual and, while trying to decelerate, the front tucked. I was pushing hard and these things can happen. The positive note is that we made a step forward compared to yesterday, so we’ll try to do our best in the final Grand Prix of the season.”
Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – Race DNF
World Standings P. 4
Next Round:
VALENCIA GP
CIRCUIT RICARDO TORMO
NOVEMBER 14-16th
Click the button below to find out all the images of the #SuomyCrew during the weekend in Portugal.
