Francesco Bagnaia on why he lost French MotoGP win: “They were just faster”

Francesco Bagnaia saw his title defence take another small hit as he lost out on victory at the French MotoGP.

Bagnaia led most of the race before losing the lead to Jorge Martin on lap 21 of 27.

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A lap earlier, Bagnaia produced another masterclass in defence as he allowed Martin to go into turn two ahead, knowing the Pramac rider would go wide before completing a cutback.

But Martin made no such error in his second attempt at the same corner, which was the last change of lead.

Bagnaia stayed close to Martin, however, instead of going forward Bagnaia then lost the second to Marquez on the final lap.

“I was trying to do the maximum but we must consider the weekend in a positive way,” said Bagnaia post-race.

“Friday went in a perfect way and then there was a little issue in the sprint which didn’t allow us to finish the race.

“Today, these two were just faster. I tried to do the maximum but in hte last few laps I struggled to have something more which was the opposite to Jerez.

“But in any case we improved a bit in this track. Last year I crashed and two years ago I crashed, so it was important to finish the race and we did it in a fast way. 

“Happy about it but with a third position I can never really be satisfied. Let's move on to Barcelona and try to improve a bit.”

Once Martin overtook Bagnaia it looked as though the championship leader was going to pull away.

But Bagnaia was extremely quick in sectors one and two which allowed him to stay close, even though he admitted he didn’t have the pace needed overall.

“I was really strong in sector one and two, Sector two a lot,” added the reigning world champion.

“Corner seven I was quite strong but then I was losing a lot in the braking for corner nine. I saw that behind Jorge he was able to open the gap.

“It was really strange and I didn’t have the feeling to brake hard and put more speed in this corner but we will see why.

“Also, Marc [Marquez] overtook me there. I was thinking that I was braking hard but I wasn’t able to stop the bike and use the front brake.

“Then he passed me. I think it was just that they were faster.”