Michelin confirms cause of Pecco Bagnaia’s Malaysian MotoGP retirement
Michelin has revealed what forced Pecco Bagnaia to retire from the Malaysian MotoGP
Michelin has confirmed that Pecco Bagnaia was forced to retire from the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix due to a “hole in the centre” of his rear soft tyre.
The factory Ducati rider turned around his recent form slump this weekend at Sepang, qualifying on pole - having come through Q1 - to dominate the sprint on Saturday.
A victory charge on Sunday in the 20-lap grand prix was expected, though he seemed to be held back in the early stages after a brief stint in the lead by his choice of medium front tyre.
His pace then improved, as he matched eventual winner Alex Marquez, before falling further away from the Gresini rider, and then behind KTM’s Pedro Acosta on lap 13.
Pecco Bagnaia’s pace only worsened from this point, before he slowed on lap 18 with an apparent technical issue.
Michelin has now confirmed that he suffered a puncture.
“We detected a hole in the centre of the rear tyre,” Michelin boss Piero Taramasso told Italian media.
“Pecco felt the bike was starting to behave strangely. When he got in, we checked and saw that the pressure was between 0.6 and 0.7 bar.”
Taramasso suggests Bagnaia’s puncture was caused by debris, though Ducati is yet to confirm this.
Prior to Bagnaia’s retirement, there had been crashes for Pol Espargaro, Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez.
“We definitely found a hole caused by a piece of carbon, something on the track,” he added.
“It’s a shame because he was going well, managed the start of the race well, and still had some fuel left.
“For one of two laps, he felt like he was behaving a little strangely. Then the pressure dropped significantly on the next lap.
“We need to analyse the data to see exactly how much he lost. But, within two laps, he immediately realised something was wrong and had to retire.”
Bagnaia had been running third at the time he retired, which promoted Honda’s Joan Mir onto the podium.
The Ducati rider is now fourth in the standings, five points behind Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi, who struggled to 11th on Sunday at Sepang.
Bagnaia, speaking to Sky Italy, says he felt the puncture from lap 12 but initially thought he had just not managed his rear tyre properly.
"Unfortunately, this year we're having a bit of bad luck, and here what happened happened, I punctured the rear tyre," he said.
"Unfortunately, we saw from the data that the puncture came on the 12th lap, and lap after lap it was losing pressure.
"Honestly, I thought I hadn't been able to Manage the rear tire well because suddenly I started to feel really low on grip, or at least that it was getting worse lap after lap.
"And that coincides with when I started to experience a decline. So it's a bit of bad luck; unfortunately, it's racing, and it can happen."
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