Last year, Pecco Bagnaia’s weekend started very badly, as he failed to enter Q2, before ending with a victory from 13th place on the grid. The Italian once believed that such a tortuous scenario was looming this Friday as he spent a large part of the day poorly placed, before suddenly returning to contact with the leaders, almost miraculously, when he took a soft tire. at the back.
Fourth, less than a tenth behind Enea Bastianini, Bagnaia thus secured his place in Q2 and greatly simplified the rest of the events. “I was reliving the nightmare weekend of last year, my team too I think”said the Ducati rider. “We were a bit under pressure but fortunately, as soon as I got a soft new, everything became fantastic again.”
“We just lost a little time this morning because we decided to adopt the same strategy as last year with the electronics but there was less grip and I wasn’t accelerating out of the corners . I was having a little trouble. We made changes and this afternoon, I don’t know why but in the right turns, I had a lot of difficulty, I lost a second compared to the leaders.
“The two who had the same tires as me, Martín and Enea, were running 1’30″6, I was running 1’30″6, 1’30″5. I was having difficulties. Nothing we tried worked so it was a weird situation. As soon as we changed the rear tire and got a new soft one, everything came back. I felt that it was good and that it helped me feel a lot better and calm me down because without that it would have been problematic.”
Pecco Bagnaia
Photo de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Bagnaia does not want to worry about his performance with the medium for the moment, preferring to think about qualifying and the sprint race, during which the soft will be favored: “I feel good for tomorrow because tomorrow morning we will have a worn soft, and in the sprint I think we will have the soft. For the long race, I saw that Enea and Martín did fantastic laps this morning, Franco [Morbidelli] Also. I think we’re closer than we saw this morning so I don’t want to think too much about what happened today.”
Bagnaia’s misfortunes were not completely over at the end of the session as he ran out of fuel, which caused he expected since he did one more lap than expected. His future teammate, Marc Márquez, helped him return to the pit lane. As for the one who currently shares his garage, Enea Bastianini, his day was much simpler, with good sensations from start to finish and the track record to boot.
“I feel good, I’m happy with the day because this afternoon we were fast from the start but it’s not easy because the rear medium needs two or three laps before being ready”tempered the winner of the Emilia-Romagna GP. “Before, you have to take some risks to be fast. Apart from that, for the time attack I was ready and the bike worked very well. It was important to try to be very fast with the first tire and after I did my best lap with the first one, I’m happy.”
Bastianini remains cautious since the gaps are tiny, with a top 4 gathered in 0.082 and the first 12 in less than half a second, and he sees avenues for improvement: “We have to continue working and see the data because most often, I lose a lot of time in sector 2, between a tenth and a tenth and a half. For tomorrow, we will have to correct the situation a little. For the rest, It will be important to do the perfect lap tomorrow because a lot of drivers are fast. We are very close and we have to be very good.
