Francesco Bagnaia’s Sprint ride-height “scare”: “But then I looked at the times”

Pointless in the four races prior to Sepang, Francesco Bagnaia went from zero to hero by leading every lap of the Malaysian MotoGP Sprint.

In a further twist, Bagnaia rode to a 2.259s victory over Sunday winner Alex Marquez despite the rear ride-height device on his Ducati GP25 not working.

“Honestly, I was quite scared, but then I looked at the times, and I was quite surprised. I was super-fast,” Bagnaia said.

“There are tracks and tracks. Honestly, here, the grip level is very low, so to give the shock more movement [suspension travel] is better.

“In other tracks where the grip is good, without the ride-height device you are accelerating much less.”

A different, insurmountable, technical issue sank Bagnaia’s hopes in the grand prix, with a puncture forcing him out of a podium place.

But Bagnaia took heart from the fact that, while a perfect Motegi weekend was followed by more handling problems at Mandalika and Phillip Island, he and Ducati were able to turn around a difficult start at Sepang.

“Let's wait until Portimao, but here we worked [well] after not a good Friday,” Bagnaia said.

“Even if the points are less than Motegi, I'm leaving here with a clearer idea.

“In Motegi, I was feeling fantastic on my bike. And it was strange because nobody knows why.

“Here we arrived, and the feeling was the same as the race in Phillip Island, so good but not ideal.

“But we worked on it, and finally we found something that was working a bit better.

“We made the pole position, we won the Sprint and were fighting for a podium in the grand prix. Maybe we were fighting for a victory. 

"But surely, it's a positive weekend.”

That was also despite being the only frontrunning rider to pick the medium front tyre, in a race where the soft proved more competitive.

Meanwhile, Alex Marquez felt that a strong qualifying played a key role in Bagnaia's Sprint dominance.

"In MotoGP, when you are starting first and you lead, it's much easier," said the Gresini rider on Saturday. "When you start 8th, 10th, 13th, it's a really different race. 

"When you are in front, the bike has like a better character and everything is under control. When you are in a big slipstream [group] with all the aerodynamics, it's getting a little bit crazy. 

"But, it's Pecco. I didn't have any doubt that he would be fast and especially here, where you have a lot of braking points. He is where he needs to be, and [on Sunday] it will be tough to beat him."

Marquez was then holding a narrow lead over Bagnaia when he suffered the slow puncture. The Spaniard went on to win the grand prix by 2.7s from KTM's Pedro Acosta.

With Alex confirmed as second in the world championship behind brother Marc, Bagnaia starts the penultimate round in Portimao next weekend five points behind Aprilia's Marco Bezzecchi for third in the world championship.