“Happy, confident” Francesco Bagnaia hails “incredible” Misano grip
Misano grip transforms Francesco Bagnaia's fortunes, "decided not to change anything”.
Languishing 14th and then 21st at the start of the last two MotoGPs, Francesco Bagnaia kicked off his home Misano weekend with a competitive fourth on the Friday practice timesheets at Misano.
After back-to-back weekends disrupted by major set-up changes - a radical setting at Balaton Park, then returning to a standard set-up at Barcelona - Bagnaia “decided not to change anything on the bike today”.
So what made the difference?
“Grip,” said Bagnaia. “The fact that I can brake super hard, the rear is helping me to stop. And when I enter the corner, I don't feel that the rear is shaking or making movement.
“So for me, more stability and more support from the rear is fundamental, and I'm super happy with it.”
He added: “The grip here is fantastic. I think whoever made this asphalt needs to do a masterclass to all the others!
“This asphalt is from 2020 and it's incredible how the grip is. I was able to feel more things about my bike, so super good.
“I just decided not to change anything on the bike today, because every time we are always changing many things, and things are always the same.
“So we decided to not touch anything, just make laps.
“For the afternoon we just changed the front tyre, put the medium and did little details during the session and it was better in corner entry.”
Bagnaia - seeking to end a four-round podium drought that has even garnered sympathy from title-leading Ducati team-mate Marc Marquez - also continued using the ‘shorter’ Ohlins front fork.
“I already used it in Barcelona and I think to stop the bike and corner entry, less transfer is better for me,” he said.
Although Bagnaia didn’t put quite as many laps on the medium rear as the likes of Practice leader Marquez and Barcelona winner Alex Marquez, the Italian joined them in the low 1m 31s.
“I'm quite happy, confident with the pace today,” he said.
“The time attack also went quite well apart from the corner 10 when I was wide on the fast lap. But overall, a good day.”
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Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
