The season has had its ups and downs for Francesco Bagnaia. Speaking to SpeedWeek, the Italian driver talked about his feelings at the start of the championship, right up to his victory in the Jerez GP.
– The first race of the season is always special. We started the same way we finished the Championship in 2023. We had a great race in Qatar, we controlled every corner, every lap and it felt incredible. I was more or less expecting it. What I didn’t expect was the way things went afterwards in Portimão and Austin. We had some big problems at the Grand Prix, but we really need to find a solution.
Many Ducati riders say that they have encountered some problems with the Ducati GP24 version, Pecco clarified: ‘Yes, there are problems because we didn’t have the bike ready in testing, not even with used tires. Then the vibrations in the Sprint race in Qatar were terrible. It was the first time I felt them. In Sunday’s long race I didn’t have any of these problems. So we said: maybe now we know how to do the lap time with this bike. Then came Portimão and I had incredible vibrations – in Austin I had vibrations in the right-hand corners in the Sprint and in the Grand Prix in the left-hand corners! This was difficult to understand and it was also difficult to predict what the bike would do. I think the potential of the GP24 is very high, we just need to understand it a bit better.