In the thrilling finale at Assen, Pecco Bagnaia managed to secure a spot in Q2. The Ducati rider took a big risk, as he was in 16th place with just 3 minutes remaining. Then came the last-minute surge to clinch a spot in the top five ahead of Marc Marquez. The Piedmont native worked his way up step by step, finding the right direction despite an uncalculated risk related to the tyres.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrillers are all the rage these days,\u201d he joked. \u201cLet\u2019s just say that when I found out I didn\u2019t have another tyre, I wasn\u2019t exactly thrilled. Obviously, you can\u2019t warm them all up; otherwise, you risk ending up with a tyre that\u2019s already been used. But I figured that, in the end, it\u2019ll be tough to race on the softs on Sunday, so maybe having an extra tyre could come in handy. When I realized I didn\u2019t have it anymore, it was a bit of a tough moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
That lap you set takes on even more significance\u2026
\u201cIn free practice, I expected a bit more from the softs at the start of the session. When I started out, I didn\u2019t feel particularly comfortable, but we realized the problem wasn\u2019t the tyres. We\u2019d tried a setup that wasn\u2019t giving us the feedback we expected, and it took a couple of laps to figure that out. When we switched to a different setup\u2014which worked much better\u2014I was on my second run with the medium, and that\u2019s when I felt comfortable. I was able to set fast lap times. In my opinion, on the mediums we were pretty close to Bezzecchi, who was the fastest. Right now they have a bit of an edge on the softs, but in terms of pace we closed the gap significantly over the course of the day, and I\u2019m satisfied with that. In the time attack, however, I didn\u2019t feel great with the rear tyre on my first attempt. On the second attempt, I did, but between the yellow flag and the red flag, I only had one chance, and on that lap I gave it my all. I definitely didn\u2019t have the potential of a completely new tyre, but this is a track that lends itself well to not needing a huge exit out of the corner. Sure, you can feel a bit less grip, but it was still enough to stay up front.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will the soft be the right choice for tomorrow\u2019s Sprint?
\u201cThe main issue is temperature. The tyre heats up a lot, and when that happens, it starts to make that constant movement that really bothers me. It starts doing that as early as the second or third lap. We\u2019ll need to understand the situation clearly. Fortunately, the engineers are already working on finding a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pre-qualifying was very up and down. From the outside, it all seemed rather strange: you were way back, then suddenly you moved up to the front. Does that worry you?
\u201cNo. On the medium tyres, I\u2019d already set my best time and moved up to sixth place. Then I put on the first set of softs and improved quite a bit. The 1\u201931″5 lap time had already put me in fifth. On the next lap, I was running about a tenth and a half faster than that, so we were already very fast. In my opinion, there was the potential to lap in 1\u201931.1 or 1’31.2. The red flag caused us to lose a bit of ground, and then, with a tyre that already had six laps on it, it was hard to imagine setting the absolute fastest time. But we stayed very close to the leaders. The potential is there; we\u2019re fast. We just need to find a bit more consistency, which isn\u2019t easy on a track like this. The heat also puts a lot of strain on the tyres. Many of the crashes we saw today, across all categories, were due precisely to the high temperatures.\u201d<\/p>\n
How much does Assen help you compared to last year?
\u201cIt\u2019s a track where I feel pretty comfortable even when I\u2019m not 100% in sync with the bike. But I have to say that, compared to last year, today I\u2019m able to brake it and get it to turn better. And that helps a lot, especially on a track like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been a lot of talk today about your brake discs. Can you tell us a bit about these 355s?
\u201cThis discussion actually started last year. I tried the 355s at Aragon and really liked them. The ones we\u2019re using now are a special version developed for use even on tracks where it wasn\u2019t possible before. Brembo has done a fantastic job, both for me and for the others. I think there are very few people using them, and honestly, I don\u2019t even know who the others are. I\u2019m really happy with them. I\u2019d even use them at Phillip Island when the temperature with four degrees, because they really help my riding style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Have you been using them since Thailand and haven\u2019t taken them off since?
\u201cI\u2019ve been using these specific discs since this year\u2019s Jerez test. They aren\u2019t the solution to every problem. They\u2019re simply a help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from the discs, how much does it help to have peace of mind knowing what your future holds?
\u201cActually, I\u2019ve felt mentally free ever since the first race of the season, because everything was decided back then. So from that point of view, I\u2019m completely at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n
How would you describe these 55 degrees on the track?
\u201cI think it\u2019s the highest temperature I\u2019ve ever seen, and that contributed to the crashes. I don\u2019t think the tyres have ever suffered as much as they did today. Tomorrow, if you start from the back, you risk struggling a lot with the front\u2014in fact, I\u2019ll try to be up front as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the final stretch, you had a long line of riders behind you and only one chance\u2026
\u201cIf you start thinking, it\u2019s over. I just focused on going, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the thrilling finale at Assen, Pecco Bagnaia managed to secure a spot in Q2. The Ducati rider…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[262932,64,63,324469,17197,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-763321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-assen","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bagnaia","tag-ducati","tag-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}