Francesco Bagnaia “pushed like hell” before Australian MotoGP crash: “I will not finish last again”

Francesco Bagnaia says he was more on the limit than during his Motegi double victory when he crashed from twelfth place in the Sunday’s Australian MotoGP.

Still haunted by a distant last-place in the Mandalika Sprint, and ahead of only stand-in team-mate Michele Pirro in the Phillip Island Saturday race, Bagnaia was determined not to suffer the same fate again.

“I prefer a thousand times to crash fighting - not [even] for a good result, but for some points - than crashing from last,” he said.

Violent shaking from his factory Ducati reached its zenith in morning warm-up at Phillip Island, where he parked both machines early after an extreme set-up only magnified the oscillations.

Ducati then went in the other direction, and Bagnaia finally found a more stable bike for the 27-lap race.

“Honestly, it was better than yesterday. Luckily, this morning we tried something that was not working completely, so we just moved in the other direction and the bike was much more stable,” Bagnaia said.

“More difficult to ride due to the heaviness, but at least it was a bit better. I was able to force it more, I was able to ride at a pace that was faster than the riders in the front, so I was recovering.

“I needed a bit of time in the first two or three laps to understand it.. It was much more difficult to ride, but it was a bit better.”

Starting just 14th after a three-place grid penalty, Bagnaia slipped back to 16th as he understood how to ride the revised set-up. 

But he then made steady progress, climbing to twelfth and setting the tenth fastest lap of the race (+0.4s) when he crashed out with four laps to go.

“I accepted [the crash] because I said to myself, I will not finish last again.

“So I pushed like hell today. I accepted that it was possible to crash, and I crashed.

“The top 10 was possible, and unluckily, I just fell off because I was pushing and as soon as the rear came back from the slide, I lost it.”

VR46’s Fabio di Giannantonio took his GP25 to second place behind debut winner Raul Fernandez (Aprilia), with Ducati test rider Pirro 18th and last.

di Giannantonio set a best race lap only 0.2s faster than Bagnaia.

Pirro will continue alongside Bagnaia at Sepang, as Marc Marquez continues to be sidelined by the shoulder injury in Mandalika.

“We tried a different setup, which led to some steps forward, and I didn’t push too hard because it was key to finish in good conditions," Pirro said.

"This is good training ahead of Sepang, which suits me better as we test there every off-season – even though it’ll be hotter this time around. We’ll aim to keep improving our performance and narrow the gap.”