The Pramac driver achieved an excellent result in Australia last week and thus put an end to the succession of complicated results which had continued since the start of the year.
Francis Bagnaia did not expect to experience such a complicated first season in MotoGP after winning the Moto2 crown last year. And even less after the fantastic test he carried out at the start of the season on the Sepang circuit, where he finished second, a few thousandths behind Danilo Petrucci. But in hindsight, the Italian would have preferred to finish further down the rankings.
“This test was the biggest problem of my season”, he explained to
GP One. “Being so quick was counterproductive because it made me think it would be easy. When I came back to reality, finding the path to competitiveness was very complicated. It was illusory. I knew MotoGP would be difficult, but it became even more difficult. »
From then on, a long journey strewn with pitfalls began, with no less than six blank results in the race. Enough to discourage anyone, but Bagnaia knew how to use his past experiences: “I arrived as World Champion but I struggled to be fast. Fortunately, I learned during my career not to give up, especially during my two years at Mahindra in Moto3. This experience was very useful to me because it was one of the most difficult years to face. »
“I understood that I had to change my driving style”, He said. “I went to Borgo Panigale, and we analyzed my weak points with the engineers. The main one was braking and I started working on that. It worked because in Japan I was strong on this point. »
Liberation finally arrived last week in Australia, with his best career result in MotoGP with a fourth place and a first podium missed by only 55 thousandths: “At Phillip Island, I drove for the first time with a free mind, without thinking too much about what I should do. Everything came more easily to me and it was a great satisfaction because I worked so hard to achieve it. And then this track adapts well to my style and to the Ducati which was running very well. I had a lot of confidence at the back. Now I have to think about Sepang, another track that I really like, and I'm very curious to see my progress compared to the test at the beginning of the year. »
