Bagnaia to Marquez: “Did you help me today?”

serious face Francesco Bagnaia after his third place at the MotoGP Australian Grand Prix. It was he who took Marc Márquez on his wheel to Jorge Martin and attacked the leader first, but as soon as he did he lost steam and finished the race ten seconds behind the Madrid driver and a further four points behind him. There will be 20 in total, of which 107 will be distributed between events in Thailand, Malaysia and Valencia.

“Unfortunately, we got a little lost yesterday. I felt good on Friday, but yesterday the wind picked up a lot and we had to change something for the sprint and it didn’t work. I started well, but after the first lap I already realized that it would be difficult to finish ahead, and I finished fourth. During the warm-up we tried another scheme, which worked much better, but it was too late. I felt better in the race but he had difficulty turning the motorcycle. Then I started to feel like I was putting too much pressure on the front and After 15 laps my front wheel wore out. Then, to try to maintain the pace, I tightened the rear wheel, but that too was worn out and I had a lot of difficulties in the last five laps,” he analyzed after the test.

Regarding Marquez’s problem at the start, he feared that it might affect him: “I saw that he was taking off a tear and tried to throw it, but he threw it in the wrong direction because the wind was blowing from there.” . He turned to the motorcycle and tried to take it off, but it remained there, and there was very little time left before the start. I saw this and said, “I need to go a little more to the right.” But then Maverick got in the way, and I had to go slalom. We talked about not running a lead on the grid because of the Jack Miller incident at Misano 2020, but never created a specific rule for it. It depends on the pilot’s feelings. I understand that if there is a large insect on the screen, it may not be visible or may distract you, so it is better to remove it.”

Then came a question from AS about whether he felt Mark had done him a favor, with us reminding him that nine years ago he had already beaten Jorge Lorenzo here and there were people in Italy who said he was acting as a bodyguard Mallorca… There He turned to Marquez and said, “Did you help me today?” And Mark replied: “Yes, I took five points from Martin.” And then the Italian, smiling when he heard the question, answered like this: “The point is rather that he wanted victory and had such an opportunity. Yesterday Jorge was super strong, but today, however, Mark failed at the start again, but his pace was much stronger. In the end he won and I don’t think he was thinking about 2015.”

How do you see the next two races, in Thailand and Malaysia: “These are the two tracks where I go faster than this one. It is true that I achieved good results on this circuit, but I was never as fast as on Motegi or on other circuits. Buriram and Malaysia are two tracks that suit my driving style well and I can be stronger there. We already knew that we could lose points on this track, and Jorge did it perfectly. In Buriram we have a good chance to fight again. He won last year, let’s see this time.”