by VALERIO BARRETTA
MotoGP Le Mans, Bagnaia is bitter
For two thirds of the race, Francesco was in command at Le Mans Bagnaia. In the most important moment, however, the reigning world champion suffered from the superior speed of Jorge Martin, who took the lead with nine laps to go: an overtaking to which “Pecco” was never able to respond. Not only that, because Marc Marquez caught up with the leading pair, taking advantage of their skirmishes, and then overtook the #1 on the last lap in turn 9. And now the top of the standings is much further away: 38 points from Martin, with Marquez trailing him by two points.
Bagnaia’s words
“The thing I regret most is not having won“, this is the first immediate comment on Sky Sport MotoGP. “I did my best, unfortunately the two of them had more. I struggled a bit, I couldn’t be fast in sector 3, in any case the result is good, and thinking about yesterday you can’t help but be happy. I missed a little something, but I’ll try again in Barcelona“.
Bagnaia then admitted between the lines that he did not expect Marquez to overtake at the last corner: “My idea was to stick to Martin. I wasn’t able to pass him in turn 7, which was the point where I wanted to try, and therefore I wanted to stay close to try again in turn 13, where I was faster. Marc braked very hard into Turn 9, I couldn’t brake very hard there, I always lost a little. He was incisive, he passed me, and he was very strong in the penultimate corner, I couldn’t overtake him. In general we perhaps missed not having done the Sprint yesterday, they had more and Marc managed to get back up quickly. I was in more difficulty but we will work to improve“.
“Le Mans is the first race I’ve finished in recent years, and it’s positive. I didn’t have what I had in Jerez, but I was able to be more incisive than Jorge at certain points, while he was more incisive than me at others, and therefore I was never able to find myself in a situation of overtaking. I made a mistake not to take advantage of the long move he made at the third corner with three laps to go“, he concluded. “It was a nice weekend, then unfortunately what happened happened in the Sprint, let’s hope it doesn’t happen again. The next two tracks, Barcellona and Mugello, are two where I’m going strong. Then we need the home match“.
