‘Pissed off’ Bagnaia loses title lead, but defends lack of team orders
“I don't know how to say [because] I never say bad words in English but I'm ‘pissed off’. It’s correct?” smiled Bagnaia, when asked to sum up his feelings after Saturday.
Ducati’s reigning champion has seen a once mighty 66-point advantage over Pramac’s Jorge Martin erased after losing points to the young Spaniard for the past eight races in a row.
But the Italian was on the back foot at Mandalika even before Saturday’s Sprint even got underway.
A slide in Friday practice left Bagnaia outside the top ten and into a tense Qualifying 1, where he was knocked out of a Q2 transfer place at the last minute by his own team-mate Enea Bastianini.
Martin and fellow title contender Marco Bezzecchi failed to fully exploit Bagnaia’s misery with accidents in Q2.
But while Martin then carved his way to Sprint victory and was joined on the podium by Bezzecchi, Bagnaia could rise no higher than eighth and finished the race still trapped in the wheeltracks of… Bastianini.
“I will sound crazy to say it, but we didn't have team orders last year, so we don’t have this year [either],” Bagnaia replied when quizzed on whether Bastianini, returning from injury and well out of the championship fight, should have been moved aside in the race.
“We will never have these kinds of team orders. It's normal. We are eight riders with, not the same packages, but the same possibility to fight for the positions. This is the strategy from Ducati and I accept it.
“Today the only way possible to pass Enea was to push him out. It's not the way I like to race.”
Should there not at least have been some team orders for Bastianini, as a team-mate and not just another Ducati rider, in qualifying?
“But why block a rider who is coming back from a long time away with an injury and say to him, ‘Don't improve your lap time because you have to let Pecco though?’” Bagnaia replied.
Bagnaia ‘still believes’ in championship
Despite Martin’s ominous form, Bagnaia highlighted that on paper a seven-point lead is nothing with six Grands Prix and five more Sprint races still to go.
“It's still very long. Seven points and 6 races [rounds] are enough to believe in the championship! So I will do the maximum. Starting from P13 is very difficult, but we will try [tomorrow].”
Bagnaia explained that his limitation in Qualifying 1 was not related to the braking woes from India, but instability on corner exit. He also pointed out that, although not fast enough to hold off Bastianini and reach Q2, his Q1 time would have been enough for fifth on the grid.
“I'm struggling a bit with the new soft tyre. Because my bike becomes too aggressive, very nervous and it's very difficult to open normally the throttle,” he said.
“I tried the maximum and I was very close to Qualifying 2. And my lap time was enough to be on the second row. So it was a bit of bad luck.”
The lowly grid position was then compounded by the narrow (clean) racing line hindering overtakes in the 13-lap race.
“Only if you are very aggressive, pushing other riders out of the line, can you overtake,” he said.
In the Ducati team press release, Bagnaia indicated he will be more aggressive on Sunday: "The speed is there, the performance also; I just need to be maybe more aggressive in the first part of the race and in overtakes."
Tomorrow's grand prix will be over 27 laps.
Unlike in the Sprint, there will be a Moto3 and then Moto2 race before the MotoGP event, which is expected to help widen the clean racing line.
