#AragonGP: Pecco Bagnaia finally climbs back onto the podium
Another demanding weekend for our Suomy rider, Pecco Bagnaia and his S1-XR GP. On Friday, during Practice, he managed to break into the top ten but with great difficulty, complaining about excessive bike movement and a poor feeling with the front wheel, which tended to close the line too much. In the Sprint Race, he couldn’t solve the front-end issue and unfortunately had to settle for 12th place despite starting from 4th. Sunday’s race, however, was very positive for Pecco and the entire team, which regained confidence with a spectacular third-place finish.
SPRINT RACE
A tough Friday, marked by constant efforts to fix setup issues and the lack of front-end feeling. Despite this, our Pecco Bagnaia managed to set an excellent fourth-best time and started from the second row in the Sprint Race.
Pecco’s downfall during the short Saturday race was therefore unexpected, as due to a mistake, he slipped back to twelfth place. Another performance to forget in the short race, which in recent years hasn’t seemed to suit his style very well.
RACE
A brake modification during warm-up gave Pecco more confidence. This seems to be one of the reasons why our Suomy Rider regained that sense of trust he had been lacking for some time, and during Sunday’s race, it allowed him to push consistently, as his potential enables him to do.
“We switched from 340 brakes to 355 brakes, which are larger discs… It’s a small thing that helped me brake later and go in stronger,” said Bagnaia. In fact, during the race, he managed to stay focused and never made a mistake, remaining in the leading group. Getting back on the podium was certainly crucial for the championship standings (although he remains 93 points behind his teammate), but above all for morale.
MOTO2
Our Ivàn Ortolà couldn’t find the right feeling with the bike from the free practice sessions, where he consistently hovered around the twentieth position. Then came Q1, which gave some hope with an excellent sixth-best time. However, during the race, our rider couldn’t find the right rhythm or feeling and finished in 14th position despite his great effort. We send our best wishes to young Ivàn so that he can approach the Italian GP motivated and ready to win.
“Today I struggled quite a bit from the opening lap. I knew it would be tough already from FP2 as I wasn’t feeling comfortable despite a good lap at the end. We were able to improve by 0.6secs in qualifying but I honestly wasn’t expecting the race to be this challenging – I was expecting something more from it. The issues were similar to the ones experienced yesterday, with the front tucking in several parts of the track and – generally speaking – there’s a lack of feeling at the front, and that’s crucial for me. We’re still trying different adjustments and we’ll try to make a step forward ahead of tomorrow’s race.”
Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – Sprint Race 12°
“This podium is very important for morale and for the whole team. We’ve been working hard for three weekends to solve the problems, but for one reason or another we hadn’t yet managed to find the right setup. After yesterday’s Sprint, where I wasn’t able to get the front tyre to work, today we started much better and the change made during the warm-up definitely helped me. It was a small adjustment, but it gave me a lot more confidence, especially under braking, allowing me to be more competitive.”
Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – Race 3°
World Standings P. 3
Next Round:
ITALIAN GP
Mugello
June 20-22th
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