Francesco Bagnaia on dominant sprint race: “The pace was incredible”

Francesco Bagnaia’s perfect weekend in Assen showed no signs of slowing down in the sprint race as he led every lap en route to a second consecutive sprint win.

After mistakes or bad luck plagued his early season sprints, Bagnaia has hit back with a bang including Assen where he was untouched following his lap record in qualifying.

Jorge Martin was able to stay close during the opening stages, however, Bagnaia’s pace was too hot to handle around the mid-race point.

Speaking about his race, Bagnaia said: “I feel fantastic. I love this track. I topped every session until now so anything more than this is impossible.

“We still have tomorrow which is the main target so it will be important to make the same start and try to control the race.

“Today wasn’t easy because Martin was really strong at the start so I pushed a lot but I was trying to understand the rear tyre and whether it is possible to race with the soft tomorrow.

“I did the maximum and the bike is working perfectly. It’s something that we built on in the last races and it’s working super well.”

Prior to pulling away, Bagnaia looked to be comfortable with Martin behind him.

However, the factory Ducati rider admitted he was pushing at all times, even though some laps it was done with control.

Bagnaia said: “As soon as I started [the race] I started to push a lot to build an advantage.

“I finished the first lap with 0.4s and then I just tried to push a bit but under control. It was easy to make mistakes today with the temperature and the tyres were quite difficult to manage.

“But the pace was incredible. I did a 1m 32s on the last lap, otherwise it was the perfect race under the 32s.”