“Not a good manoeuvre”: KTM rider explains dramatic Mugello MotoGP Sprint crash

Enea Bastianini crashed out of the Italian MotoGP Sprint after “not a good manoeuvre”, he has admitted.

Bastianini was running in the points and as the top-placed KTM rider in the opening laps of the Mugello Sprint.

But the Italian’s race was over early when he crashed out on lap five while defending from Pedro Acosta, his bike tumbling through the gravel as he fell.

Bastianini had been out on the outside kerb when he was braking into turn 10 on that particular occasion, perhaps indicating a mistake, but the Italian insisted this was his normal line.

“Usually I take it like this, try to use all the track to go in,” Enea Bastianini said after the Sprint.

“But it’s not a good manoeuvre to be fast, and also it’s a manoeuvre a bit on the limit for the race. I know that, I committed that mistake for today, but it also happened because it’s my home GP, I wanted to [achieve] a great result and, well, it’s the Sprint.”

Bastianini was third on Friday in Practice and so entered Saturday with some optimism surrounding him, but the performance on Saturday was far worse and he was in the back end of the points places when he crashed.

The Italian explained that the problem at Mugello is the same as usual with the KTM: turning.

“The main problem is always the same, to turn,” Bastianini said.

“When Fermin [Aldeguer] overtook me very early, just in the first lap, I tried to follow him, but checking his speed corner was frustrating for me because it was impossible. 

“I’ve tried to manage and try to wait a bit in the middle of the race, but I crashed before. 

“But well, in any case, we are a bit on the limit. 

“Yesterday we were competitive, today we remain in the same level, but the others, they have improved a lot. We try to do a step for tomorrow, because like this is very difficult.”

Looking to Sunday, the Tech3 KTM rider was unsure what to expect, having run a medium-compound rear tyre in FP2 on Saturday morning but with a used front tyre.

“Well, I don’t know, because today I tried the medium new, but in the front I was with 15 laps, and to be honest I didn’t understand [anything],” Bastianini explained when asked if the harder rear tyre compared to the Sprint – where most riders used the soft, although race winner Raul Fernandez chose the medium – would help him in the full-length race.

“I have to have more information for tomorrow morning. 

“I think it can be better for us, usually the soft [rear tyre] pushes in the front [and] is difficult to manage. 

“But it was important to close the Sprint to understand also how was the drop of the tyre.”