Ducati, Bagnaia’s crisis continues
Not even a “Ducati track” like Aragón managed to lift Francesco Bagnaia. The two-time MotoGP world champion was excluded from the top-10 in the Practice and will therefore have to go through Q1 tomorrow morning. After the almost humiliating 20th place in FP1, “Pecco” showed signs of improvement in the afternoon, but he could not go beyond 13th position (one second behind Marco Bezzecchi’s time) with a mistake in the last time attack that definitively compromised his Friday.
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What worries the Piedmontese is not the condition of the right hand, swollen but not problematic for riding, but the chronic lack of rear grip, which he also had to fight with at Silverstone.
Bagnaia’s words
“The data clearly shows where my difficulties are,” Bagnaia commented to Sky Sport MotoGP. “You see a very fast Marc, but above all an Alex Marquez who makes a difference in several respects, especially in braking and corner entry. So we actually know where to look, but we can’t solve the difficulties: it’s hard for me to accept, it’s especially tough for the team to understand where to go; everything we try doesn’t give results, and since Silverstone we have been stuck, in fact we are struggling much more than we expected. The situation is complicated, but the team is working hard and this helps me understand a bit more“.
“I expected to do better, honestly I thought I would feel quite comfortable here,” he added. “Unfortunately, since Silverstone I have had several difficulties, it is true that I was not shining in previous races either, but I managed to stay in the top ten and be quite fast. The hand is not the issue. Of course, it is annoying because I can’t apply force and because surely when you are not physically well it worsens the difficulties with the bike, because you can’t compensate. However, it has not been a limit“.
The 13th place forces “Pecco” to an extra effort in tomorrow’s Qualifying, but his problems with rear grip and corner entry will hardly disappear overnight. Unlike Silverstone, the Ducati rider can count on a “friendly” circuit both for him (here he found his first MotoGP win even beating Marquez) and for Ducati.
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