Phillip Island.- Pecco Bagnaia suffered on Friday with the wind, which prevented him from turning the Ducati with agility in the fast curves of the Australian track, but on Saturday he managed to correct any impediment and made his Desmosedici the bike to follow, especially for Marc Márquez, who almost achieved pole, in the end was second, at the wheel of the Italian, who had to settle for being third, both behind a scintillating Jorge Martín, who was the fastest and broke the track record, which dated from 2013, when it was established by Jorge Lorenzo.
“The goal was the front row, it’s always very important to start from the front row,” Bagnaia summed up the day’s work.
The Italian took to the track first in Q2, and was quickly followed by Marco Bezzecchi and Marc Márquez, who passed the VR46 driver to stick to Pecco’s tail like a tick.
“On the second run, and also on the first, there were many riders behind, I slowed down a bit to see if they could pass me, but when I saw that they didn’t shoot I had to do it myself because I knew that the time of the first run I wasn’t going to keep front row,” Pecco explained. “It costs you a few tenths to go ahead opening the track, but I accepted it and pushed hard to secure the front row, and we did it,” he added.
Bagnaia’s leap in performance came in FP4, the training session in which the race is prepared.
“We have taken a step there, the truth is that we were having a lot of difficulties with the wind, which did not allow us to turn the bike well, we do not have as much grip on the side of the tires, we made a small adjustment and that allowed me to make the jump that I needed and to be able to go well in the fast corners”, he argued.
Looking ahead to the race, all the drivers point to a supposed excessive consumption of the tires that can lower their performance in the final part of the race.
“I think that in this circuit you have to be very intelligent, the rear tire doesn’t get as hot and you have to manage consumption very well, you have to be constant in the first laps, but without losing positions. Many drivers who start from behind will want to recover and the tire will fall before them, you have to stay constant but without consuming a lot of rubber, that balance is the key, you have to be intelligent without losing positions”, marked the strategy.
Starting third, Bagnaia is facing a golden opportunity to recover the two points that separate him from the leader Fabio Quartararo, but the Italian sees other strong riders in the fight.
“Marc, Jorge and Fabio can be very competitive, I think Aleix Espargaró is not being so competitive here. I see Bezzecchi very fast, but he is a rookie and he may feel the tire drop more, experience can make the differenceW, he warned .
Despite the fact that everything indicates that the harder rear compound will be the choice for the race, Bagnaia did not want to give any clues ahead of time.
“Honestly, I still haven’t decided which tire I’m going to go on the race with, in FP4 we went very well with the new hard compound, but in the morning (FP3) the medium also worked very well for us, it’s still difficult to know the choice because in this circuit the front rubber can also be a problem and you have to make the right combination”, settled the one from Turin.
