Francesco Bagnaia return to you
Japanese MotoGP Grand Prix with 37 points more than in the first leg, the maximum possible score and a performance that he achieves for the third time this season;
However, despite 8 victories in GP and 6 in Sprint, the reigning world champion remains for the moment in the general classification behind Jorge Martinundoubtedly less dominant (a single “37 points”) but more regular.
The Italian is still paying for his disastrous weekend in Aragon, but is gradually reducing his deficit, including in Japan where this is a good surprise.
As usualwe report here his words during his debriefing, without the slightest formatting, even if it is translated from English.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the post-race press conference of the Japanese Grand Prix at the Mobility Resort Motegi, round 16 completed, and it’s a double victory in the Sprint and the Grand Prix for Ducati rider Lenovo Pecco Bagnaia, of course the reigning world champion. Second from the 4th row of the grid was Jorge Martin for Prima Pramac Racing, and completing the podium was a second podium of the weekend for Gresini Racing, Marc Marquez. Gentlemen, congratulations to all three!
Pecco, we’ll start the press conference with you. The weekend was perfect: the Sprint victory yesterday, a fantastic Grand Prix victory, the maximum 37 points that could be taken. As we mentioned in the comments, Motegi was the perfect class from you. How happy are you with this victory today in Japan?
Francesco Bagnaia : “I’m very, very happy because it’s the first time I’ve been this fast here. So I expected to have more difficulties, but we managed to work perfectly since the beginning of the weekend, and I would like to keep this weekend as an example in my mind to try to repeat it for the next ones, because I think we did everything perfectly, and today in the race we were so smooth and so good. I want to thank my team who once again did a fantastic job, and let’s move on to the next one. »
Your eighth victory of the season, which is your best score in MotoGP, you are clearly in great shape. We saw Jorge very fast, with a round 1’45 on the 21st lap. Did you have everything under control or were you worried at that point that Jorge would come back up and attack you?
“I managed to get these 1.5 seconds and, after the start, I said to myself “to recover this gap, he has to push a lot on the tires, and at the last part of the race, it’s not won’t be easy.” And then, when I saw that it was getting closer, I tried to change my braking a little because I was having a little trouble stopping the bike and my bike was shaking a lot in this part. So it wasn’t easy, but as soon as he did it, I tried to improve the pace a little and I widened the gap again. I think we’ve been a lot faster than we were two years ago and that’s great. And if you look at the gap between the riders, it’s incredible. The 5th place finisher came 17 seconds behind, so the first four riders set an incredible pace and I think it will be the same until Valencia. »
It seems that the brakes are at the limit on this circuit. Do you think anything needs to be done to reduce speed or aerodynamics, or to be more efficient with the brakes?
“We have to say that for the first time the 355mm brakes were a bit on the limit. But from my side I think the performance is improving a lot, the bike is so stable in this part and our bike is so good on the brakes, so I don’t know what to do to improve it, but I think we we need another step from the front tire, because at the moment the rear tire is super super good and helps us a lot, it slows us down a lot, and the front is still the one from last year, so the rear pushes a little on the front. But so far so good and I don’t think we’re at the limit. »
It is possible that before the podium you told Martin that you would sign to arrive in Valencia with the same points, and in this case why?
“He said he would sign. »
Did Martin say that? What do you think?
“I think it’s OK (laughs). I will try to catch up and overtake him, but I think it could be a good situation to arrive in Valencia with the same points and whoever wins is the champion, because it is something that has not happened since many seasons. I think the last time we saw this was in Valencia in the Moto 3 category, with Salom, Vinales and Rins, in 2013. It could be different, but we are in a situation where it is very easy to make mistakes and fall, so we are always on the limit and we play around 10, 5, 8 points every weekend, so it’s quite tricky, quite difficult. I think a few years ago it was more like that, because when you watched the races in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, Marc, Vale, Lorenzo and Pedrosa were fighting and they were always in the first four, or before with Casey, and it was something different from what the championship offers today. And I think the championship is moving in this direction at the moment because the strongest are always at the top, and in the last part of the championship, from 3-4 races into the championship, we started to see that I and Jorge were still on top, and Marc closes the gap and Enea closes the gap, so we are still in the top four positions, and if you also look at the gap today, we are making the difference again. »
MotoGP 2024 Japanese Grand Prix Results at Motegi:
Ranking credit: MotoGP.com
