Nightmare starts
The Sprint at Mugello ended with a seventh place that leaves a bitter taste for Francesco Bagnaia. It is well known that these are no longer the years when Pecco dominated the Italian GP, but today there would have been a chance to do better, even starting from a not-so-exciting sixth position on the grid. The start was however – once again – the main problem of Bagnaia’s race. The Ducati rider candidly admitted this while speaking with journalists present at Mugello during the traditional post-race media scrum.
“From my side, it’s necessary to understand why I can no longer make a good start – commented Bagnaia – that used to be one of my strengths, I have always been very fast at starts, while now for some reason I wheelie a lot and lose a lot of time. We saw that I lose four tenths to Marc just in the first phase of the start. This is huge if you think about how much I am”.
Top-4 possible, but Aprilia is scary
Aside from the reaction at the lights, Bagnaia also had some positive sensations from his GP26: “We need to work a bit for tomorrow, there are some ideas. We need to somehow find more grip, because fortunately I have extremely clear data showing how we are missing that phase. In terms of pace, we have been fast all weekend. Even in the race, when I managed to get rid of traffic, I was going quite fast. So we have the potential, I have to manage to do better“.
Bagnaia did not avoid giving a prediction for tomorrow’s GP: “A goal? If I manage to start well, I think the chance to finish in the top four is there. If I start like today instead, we’ll have to see, because it’s tougher. It would become a much harder race and you have to be careful not to wear the tires too much. Today, when I saw the start went badly, I tried to do that, but to overtake anyway you have to wear them more. It’s not easy”. But the biggest challenge will be to challenge the Noale bikes: “Aprilia today managed to make a really important step forward – concluded Bagnaia – we saw it both in qualifying – with Bezzecchi’s 43.9 – but especially in the race. Doing 44.7 with the medium tire at the rear is an extraordinary time”.
