Francesco Bagnaia: “14 points is good but nowhere near enough”

Bagnaia went into last weekend’s Malaysian MotoGP with a 13 point lead before gaining a total of one point over Jorge Martin.

The factory Ducati rider lost out to his title rival in the sprint but was able to hold off the Spaniard during the early stages of the race, before stretching clear of Martin. 

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Bagnaia, who regained his one lap speed after taking pole for the first time since round 11 in Barcelona, was pleased to be back where he feels he belongs. 

“Satisfied with the work but not completely with the result,” began Bagnaia. “I prefer to be more in front but we have to be happy. We closed the weekend with one point more than we started and the feeling was back. I was able to push from the start and make the pole position. 

“Everything went well apart from the sprint where I started to have an issue with the front which was giving lots of chattering. I was not happy about that but today [Sunday] was good. 

“The battle with Jorge was good and we managed to open the gap with him. I tried everything to close the gap to the top two but I was struggling with the front, I was having a strange feeling. 

“I was having a lot of locking and a lot of movement. It was very risky to close this gap.”

Bagnaia was well clear of Martin come the end of the race despite the pair battling hard early on, but for the Italian, beating Martin held a greater importance than just that of the final position.

Bagnaia said: “Considering the pace we had after this battle we can be happy. My pace was stronger and maybe we were more competitive than him today. This is important. 

“This was the first time that we were more competitive than him in many races. I’m happy with that and with the feeling with the bike.”

With regards to the title, Bagnaia was on a three-race losing streak to Martin in terms of points prior to finishing third at Sepang.

But although 14 points is a good lead at this stage of the season - only two rounds (four races remain) - it’s not one he feels totally secure with: “Having that will be very important to open the gap more. 14 points is good but it’s nowhere near enough. 

“I’m very happy that Enea [Bastianini] was back on this [level] of performance and it will help to improve. I’m looking forward to going to Qatar.”