Francesco Bagnaia arrives at the MotoGP Malaysian GP, trailing championship leader Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) by 17 points, making him the rider with the most to gain from taking risks.
The Italian is fully aware of Sepang’s significance, as he stated in a press conference: ‘It’s a very important weekend, we know perfectly. It will be important to start working in the best way possible like we did in Thailand. We know perfectly what we did wrong on Saturday, so we will improve it. And this weekend we have to try to gain more than three points like we did last weekend’.
Regarding the pressure, Bagnaia acknowledged its complexity but expressed that he thrives in these circumstances: ‘It’s always there, but it’s nice to be in this situation; I love to be in this situation. It’s true that, on one hand, it’s a critical situation because you know that you have to be fast because you can’t lose points. You have to be the fastest, but you have to not make any mistakes’.
The 2022 and 2023 champion went on to say: ‘I know that, at the moment, Jorge is in a better situation in terms of the championship, but also, I was in the same situation last year, and that’s when you feel you need to be calmer. Being competitive in this situation is not very easy, but I think we just have to enjoy the moment and try to work as always’.
In Bagnaia’s view, he needs to finish the Malaysian GP within ten points of Martín to maximize his chances at the final race of the year: ‘I think we are at a point in the championship where I can take a bit more risk than Jorge. Jorge has to be a bit calmer, because he has a gap in the championship – he’s 17 points ahead, so he doesn’t need to make mistakes because he can also finish in second. We will see, but I think it’s true that we can’t make mistakes. I will try to do the maximum, I will try to win both races, and then I will try to close more the gap. Because I think that to have a good chance on the last weekend, we have to leave this weekend less than 10 points behind’.