Pecco Bagnaia reveals cause of nightmare Austria MotoGP sprint

Ducati’s Pecco Bagnaia says “something strange” with his rear tyre led to his nightmare MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix sprint that saw him retire.

The double world champion has looked in competitive form this weekend at the Red Bull Ring and has been pegged by team-mate Marc Marquez as the big threat for Sunday’s grand prix.

Pecco Bagnaia qualified third on the grid but plummeted to 14th when he got massive wheelspin off the line at the start of Saturday’s 14-lap sprint.

He would drop to last on lap eight when he ran off track at Turn 1, with visible shaking from his GP25 on straights suggesting a technical issue.

Bagnaia has since revealed that his rear soft tyre didn’t work properly from the warm-up lap and was “completely finished” after just three laps.

This led to the shaking problems he encountered, which also caused pad knock-back on the front brakes.

When he spoke to the media, Michelin had yet to offer him an explanation.

“Difficult to explain well,” he began.

“But I started super bad. Already on the warm-up lap I felt something strange on the rear tyre.

“And when I started, the rear was spinning a lot.

“Then after three laps I completely finished the rear tyre, and then I started to shake a lot on the straights and I had to stop because I arrived to the first corner without a front brake because of the shaking.

“So, honestly nothing worked during the sprint and I’m just waiting for Michelin to explain to me what really happened because I really know that they don’t know what happened.

“But working together will help us to improve.”

Bagnaia has fallen victim to tyre issues before, with the Italian’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix compromised because of this last year.

Michelin has yet to make any public comment about Bagnaia’s problems in the sprint.