This MotoGP Sunday will certainly be remembered especially by Francesco Bagnaia as he renewed the world title of the category, but today he did it by fulfilling a dream, by winning the race that gave him the final triumph.
In the press conference, the Italian Ducati rider talked about his feelings and how he fulfilled the dream of celebrating the title in conjunction with a victory:
– It’s amazing. I feel that my maximum level of happiness has never been like this, because… the thing is that I am also very happy because I won the race, and today in today’s circumstances it was useless to win, but it was a dream, a goal that I always wanted to fulfill, to win the title with a victory, but it was quite scary because in the last five laps I started to feel cold on the bike and that was very dangerous because of the sensations with the front tire, it was the hard tire. I am very happy and finally I can breathe, it was not an easy day because I was under pressure.
Asked if he felt that defending the title was more complicated than conquering it, the #1 responded as follows: ‘It was difficult because last year I arrived here and was under even more pressure, honestly. This year I managed the situation very well because I was always thinking only about the races. Yesterday I was unconscious and made a bad choice of tire [rear] but I was more prepared for today, because with the medium I already knew more or less what the wear was and that was useful for me’.
Bagnaia spoke afterwards about how he had some problems at a certain point in the season, and how he has not had the performance he would like since then, especially on Saturdays, not hiding the need to improve: ‘The round in Barcelona was a turning point for us, and from that moment on we started to have more difficulties. Not in Misano because it was a week later and my big problem was being able to ride the bike because I was in a lot of pain in my leg. After that moment, I started to have more difficulties with my speed in terms of qualifying, Sprint races, and in this second part of the season I always had difficulties in the Sprint races: I was never as fast as I expected or as in the first part of the season and so for next year I will certainly have to improve. In the last races I took a big step forward, I just had some bad luck, but I am very happy with my team and everything […]’.
