When everything seemed to indicate that Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) could win the Australian MotoGP GP, it was his teammate Johann Zarco who achieved the triumph. Also in the fight was Francesco Bagnaia, competing with a medium rear tire instead of the soft one that the Spaniard risked without success. Even so, he achieved the best result among those who had that option.
In the Italian’s opinion, Martín was the only rider who bet on the soft tire since the practice sessions, but he emphasized that performance in the race is different: ‘I believe he was the only one with the possibility of racing with the soft 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 was not good enough to maintain some margin in the last laps, I was considering it‘.
Focused on proper tire management, Bagnaia believes he adopted a correct strategy, and attributed merit to 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 them more easily, without attacking. So, I think it was the right choice, the correct strategy, and I just failed a bit to be close to Johann on the last lap. But he was in a better position with traction, he worked very well with the rear grip, so he deserved the victory more than me‘.
