Bagnaia on Marquez’s antics in practice: “A strategy I don’t share”
Factory Ducati rider Bagnaia gestured furiously after trying to initially shake of Repsol Honda rider Marquez, who was clearly following him to set up his own fastest lap.
They both finished inside the top 10 but the edginess of Friday afternoon - with Bagnaia glaring furiously at the Honda garage before he went out again - has set up a tense Saturday in Le Mans.
“Last year he was doing the same thing in Malaysia,” Bagnaia told Sportmediaset about Marquez.
“But then I crashed and he got into the front row by himself.
“It's Marc Marquez, we all know Marc Marquez's speed, so it's a strategy I don't share.
“I'm really different, I want to be alone in qualifying or when I do the time attack.
“He has his own strategy and he's taking it to another level in my opinion: when you close, he stays there.
“If you keep your feet on the ground, he does the same thing.
“It's an even more evolved strategy in sticking than before.”
Friday was a tricky day for the reigning MotoGP champion.
“The last run helped me a lot to be calm, because before I was quite worried,” he said. “This morning everything was going very well, but then from the time attack onwards everything was difficult.
“I thought it was just because I hadn't prepared the rear tire enough and that it wasn't ready yet, but then in the afternoon I restarted with the same tyre and I couldn't do the things I wanted, I was going long.
“I also lost a lot in acceleration, because there was a lot of spin.
"As soon as we put on a new tyre, everything was perfect.
“I wasn't able to be as fast as I would have liked because I had lost feeling, but the time attack run is the only one where I felt like great new on my bike in FP2.
“In the end it was just a tyre that wasn't working as it should have, but I lost almost 50 minutes of the session.
“That's why we're pretty sure that tomorrow will be better and I'm happy to be in the top 10.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
