Fifth place for Pecco Bagnaia didn’t leave the Italian at all satisfied, especially when he saw his lead in the championship drop from 14 to 7 points after Jorge Martín won today’s Sprint race. The Ducati rider admitted to having experienced some problems with the bike’s traction.
In his first analysis of the race, Bagnaia began by talking about the not-so-positive feelings: ‘Honestly… all weekend I’ve had different feelings to consider a victory and in the race, as soon as it started I immediately felt a lot of difficulty in gaining pace, in having a normal pace, something I had already shown in the morning with some consistency. I’m very upset about what happened because losing seven points like that is a pity. I’m just looking forward to racing tomorrow because I think that in a normal situation we could be faster’.
And he explained the basis of the problems: ‘My feelings with the rear-wheel ride were that I had very little. I was struggling to get out in the same way as the guys in front of me and as soon as I accelerated I had a lot of spin, I was sliding and this was something different from what I’ve felt all weekend. It was very strange. This morning, with yesterday’s used tyre and already 50 laps in, I did a lap in 1:54.00s, and I was skidding less than today in the race. It’s something that can happen and we were unlucky that it happened in the race’.
Martín won and moved closer to Bagnaia, who mathematically lost the chance to become champion in Lusail.