Pecco Bagnaia has admitted his collision with Alex Marquez at the Aragon Grand Prix in September "weighs more" on his hopes of winning the 2024 MotoGP title after losing a further 10 points to Jorge Martin at the Australian Grand Prix. The reigning two-time world champion Ducati rider saw the gap to Martin increase from 10 to 20 points after two difficult races at Phillip Island, where he was never able to match Martin or Marc Marquez.
bagnaia expressed his frustrations after finishing third, far behind his Spanish rivals: " I think it's like in Indonesia ", did he declare. " We keep recovering, losing, recovering, losing. Our performance is quite balanced. Unfortunately, the contact with Alex Marquez in Aragon is the fact that now weighs most on the championship. I lost 16 points at that time, and it shows today. »
The Italian driver admitted that despite a good start to the race, he still struggled to find the right balance with his Ducati, especially on bends where he had to " force forward » to turn the motorcycle.
Pecco Bagnaia: “ we still have every chance »
« I pushed myself a lot because my bike had a tendency to go wide and it was crucial to stay close to the kerb like Jorge and Marc did. Marc even had a head start, so we need to understand why and how they made the difference. ", he added.
During the main race at Phillip Island, bagnaia briefly took the lead after a mistake by Martin on lap 12, but was quickly overtaken by his rival. He then dropped to third place behind Marquez, finally ending more than 9 seconds behind Martin. Bagnaia explained that his problems with the front tyre limited his performance at the end of the race: " as soon as i finished with the front tire, I had a hard time following them. So I had to slow down to avoid an accident. »
Despite these challenges, bagnaia remains optimistic for the next races: " They did a better job than us yesterday, especially in terms of adjustments, but the gap with the guys behind was huge. We now have to focus on the next races, because these are circuits where I am very fast. We still have every chance. »
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