When everything seemed to indicate that Jorge Martín (Pramac Ducati) could win the MotoGP Australian GP, it was his teammate Johann Zarco who took the victory. Also in the fight was Francesco Bagnaia, racing with a medium rear tire instead of the soft one that the Spaniard unsuccessfully risked. Nevertheless, he achieved the best result among those who chose that option.
In the Italian’s opinion, Martín was the only rider who chose the soft tire since the practices, but he emphasized that performance in the race is different: ‘I believe he was the only one with the possibility to race with the soft tire because on Friday he did several laps and he was very fast. I think the maximum amount was 19, with the pit stop and the start. Throughout the race, it’s always a different story, and when I saw that the distance he adopted at the beginning wasn’t good enough to maintain a margin in the last laps, I was considering him‘.
Focused on proper tire management, Bagnaia believes he adopted a successful strategy and credited Zarco’s victory: ‘At one point, during the race, I just tried to be very careful with the rear tire because I knew it was the right choice and I knew that as soon as Brad [Binder] and Fabio [Di Giannantonio] started fighting we would catch up more easily, without attacking. So, I believe it was the right choice, the correct strategy, and I just failed a little to be close to Johann on the last lap. But he was in a better situation with traction, he was working very well with rear grip, so he deserved the victory more than me‘.
