Enea Bastianini spent much of the sprint race in Marc Márquez's slipstream, never managing to overtake him.
Enea Bastianini He made his best Grand Prix start of the season. Having made it directly into Q2 for only the third time, he qualified 11th but immediately gained positions at the start of the sprint race.
Eighth from the second lap, he caught up with Francesco Bagnaia, before the latter overtook Marc Márquez at the halfway point. From then on, bastianini remained stuck behind number #93. Feeling that he had a little more speed, he nevertheless never managed to find an opening and thus crossed the finish line in his wheel.
Although satisfaction remained after this positive day, the Italian driver could not hide his frustration, as he had hoped to be at the front thanks to his passage into Q2.
"So far we've had a pretty solid weekend. But it's true that I was expecting a bit more today, given that I was with the group and had the opportunity to go faster. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay with Marc to try and attack him. That was a bit of a limitation today.", did he declare.
“We were losing acceleration. Our top speed wasn’t that bad, but the problem was that we were already too far back at the end of the straight, so I couldn’t attack him. The only time I was more effective was between turns 11 and 12. There I was really able to stay close. The problem was that then turns 13 and 14 were coming up, and Marc is really strong on the left. I couldn’t do anything in that section. I think if I had managed to overtake him, I could have moved up a bit more.”
bastianini hopes to achieve his goal tomorrow, during the long race, but knows that the choice of tires will be a key factor in achieving it. “First, we’ll have to decide on the tires, and that’s no small matter. Today, with the soft tire, we didn’t do too badly, but we need to understand the wear. If we can use the soft tire, I think we’ll be able to do well.”he concluded.
Results of the sprint race of the Dutch Grand Prix :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
