Bagnaia increasingly in difficulty
On Friday at the Red Bull Ring, the dark period of Francesco Bagnaia continued who, once again, for the fifth consecutive time, failed to qualify directly for Q2 on Saturday through the Practice and will therefore have to face Q1 tomorrow morning. After the now infamous ‘off-air’ incident at Misano, it is clear that attention and tension are at their highest around Ducati’s #63. Words of affection were delivered to him by Alessio Salucci, head of the VR46 team – the one to which Di Giannantonio belongs, the other protagonist of the DAZN off-air – who worked with Bagnaia during Moto2 and is obviously a friend of the three-time world champion.
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“It hurts me to see him like this – Uccio said to the microphones of Sky Sport MotoGP referring to Bagnaia – it seems like he has forgotten how to ride, but that’s not the case. He needs to stay calm and try to limit the damage, hoping this season ends as soon as possible. I see him struggling and I feel very sorry, I don’t understand what is not working. Surely the relationship [with Ducati] has broken, it’s no longer what it was before, this is obvious to everyone“.
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Better the ‘base’ bike
Salucci then spoke about the GP26 and indirectly touched on a topic that had emerged from the now famous off the record conversation between Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio, namely the fact that this Ducati works better – at least for the VR46 team – with the base setup: “Diggia struggling today? As always we tried to improve but instead we went backwards. The bike that works best in the end is always the same. We have now understood that it is better to use the base we have all year and ride on that. The rider who brakes later, enters the corner differently, etc., has more impact than inventing something different in terms of setup. We tried but luckily we went back in time. Di Giannantonio has a good base this year, also his personal one, and he managed to get back into the top-10”.
