Pecco Bagnaia<\/a>\u2019s pace only worsened from this point, before he slowed on lap 18 with an apparent technical issue.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
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Michelin has now confirmed that he suffered a puncture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe detected a hole in the centre of the rear tyre,\u201d Michelin boss Piero Taramasso told Italian media.<\/p>\n
\u201cPecco 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taramasso suggests Bagnaia\u2019s puncture was caused by debris, though Ducati is yet to confirm this.<\/p>\n
Prior to Bagnaia\u2019s retirement, there had been crashes for Pol Espargaro, Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe definitely found a hole caused by a piece of carbon, something on the track,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame because he was going well, managed the start of the race well, and still had some fuel left.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor one of two laps, he felt like he was behaving a little strangely. Then the pressure dropped significantly on the next lap.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bagnaia had been running third at the time he retired, which promoted Honda\u2019s Joan Mir onto the podium.<\/p>\n
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The Ducati rider is now fourth in the standings, five points behind Aprilia\u2019s Marco Bezzecchi, who struggled to 11th on Sunday at Sepang.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, this year we’re having a bit of bad luck, and here what happened happened, I punctured the rear tyre,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, we saw from the data that the puncture came on the 12th lap, and lap after lap it was losing pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“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.”<\/p>\n
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