Bagnaia in Q1 at Silverstone
For Francesco Bagnaia Friday at Silverstone ended with great difficulties, greater than expected. It was thought that Marco Bezzecchi would suffer more from poor physical conditions, coming from a non-trivial operation on his left clavicle: the Romagna rider instead set the best time in the Practice, while the Ducati rider was unable to find the lap needed to enter the top ten and will therefore be forced to go through Q1.
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Operated for compartment syndrome and carpal tunnel (as clarified in the afternoon by Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi), Bagnaia is obviously not at 100%. Moreover, he paid for a chronic and difficult feeling with Friday, as well as a crash five minutes from the end due to a front-end lock at Brooklands.
Bagnaia’s words
“I understand the crash, it was normal to lose the front. It was nothing serious, but I have a lot of trouble stopping the bike, I simply tried to brake harder and I lost it“, this is Bagnaia’s comment after the Silverstone Practice. “This year I don’t know everything about my bike, so I simply close my eyes. I go out on track and just ride what I have, others like Alex Marquez make a big difference in all the braking zones“.
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“I don’t know if with that final time attack I would have managed to get into the top-10, in any case there is a lot of work to do. I am very struggling on braking, but also when I open the throttle“, he added. “In terms of physical condition, honestly I expected to be much better. I didn’t think it would be so hard, because normally people who undergo compartment syndrome and carpal tunnel surgery take little time, but it’s been three weeks that my hand is swollen and I can’t exert strength, neither in the gym nor in bike training. I ride in a somewhat complicated situation but I don’t look for excuses: in my opinion even with the hand pain I could have made it into the top ten if I had done a better lap. Anyway tomorrow I will take a strong painkiller, today’s was not enough“.
A complicated day to be put behind as soon as possible. For Bagnaia the challenge will be to react already from Q1, from which he should not have particular problems to emerge. Provided he has better physical condition.
