As we arrive this weekend at Assen, where he won his first Moto3 Grand Prix last year with a Mahindra, Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia has announced that he will compete in the 2018 season with his current team , the Sky Racing Team VR46.
Born in Turin on January 14, 1997, Bagnaia competed in his first Grand Prix in Qatar in 2013 on an FTR Honda for San Carlo Team Italia, supported by his national federation. He scored no points that year in 17 races.
He was incorporated into Sky Racing VR46 in 2014, and finished sixteenth in the Championship on KTM, before finishing fourteenth then fourth on a Mahindra of the Aspar Mahindra Team Moto3 in 2015 and 2016. He competed in a total of 69 Moto3 Grands Prix, winning the Assen and Sepang races in 2016, and reaching the podium twenty times.
This year his debut in Moto2 was good, with seventh place in Argentina. Then he obtained two magnificent second places in Jerez, 3.4 behindAlex Marquez, then at Le Mans at 1.7 from Franco Morbidelli, after having threatened the leader of the World Championship throughout the race. He was only 0.541 behind with one lap remaining. Bagnaia currently occupies sixth position in the provisional general classification with 55 points.
According to Francesco Bagnaia, “ A little less than a year ago, I decided that I would move into Moto2 with the Sky Racing Team VR46, a team, which along with the VR46 Riders Academy and Sky, has always supported and supported me.
“Today, I am proud to be able to say that in 2018 I will continue to work in this big family to achieve important results. With more experience, I'm sure we can stay among the strongest."
For team manager Pablo Nieto, “ I'm really happy to be able to confirm that Pecco will stay with us next year in Moto2. We started the new category at the beginning of the season, but thanks to this talented recruit and his extraordinary ability to adapt to the bike, we achieved great satisfaction.
“His choice to stay with the Sky Racing VR46 team is an incentive for everyone to work even harder and give their best every weekend. In the team, we will continue to support him by putting at his disposal all our professionalism, our commitment and our passion to help him grow and allow him to show, not only on the track, his human and driver qualities. I am convinced that together we will still aim to'important objectives. »
