Enea Bastianini admits qualifying woes need to be addressed to win

Enea Bastianini once again demonstrated his late race pace to claim a podium at the Dutch MotoGP.

Seventh around the mid-race point, Bastianini made overtakes on Pedro Acosta, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Marc Marquez and Maverick Vinales.

Setting the same lap times as Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin, Bastianini showed that if he could address his early race issues which have been caused in part by poor qualifying results, he could have fought for the win.

Speaking about his comeback through the field, Bastianini added: “I enjoyed it but when you are on the bike it is different. You are enjoying it but you risk.

“It has been beautiful but much more difficult than yesterday’s race because starting from tenth place I arrived on the first corner on the inside and other riders closed the door.

“After six or seven laps I tried to overtake other riders and in the last part of the race I saw the chance to arrive on the podium. I gave all my best to do it.”

Bastianini was quick to point out that matching Bagnaia was not his target this weekend, rather turning his qualifying fortunes around will be the key going forward. 

Bastianini added: “For me, Pecco was not my target this time because from the first practice he has been really fast. Jorge improved a lot.

“The qualifying is sometimes difficult for me and trying to do the time attack without any mistakes [is not easy]. 

“Also, my set-up was not really good on Saturday morning. For the first part of the race it was complicated because the guys in front of me had the soft tyre and Brad in the fast part of the track was fast and so it was difficult for me to overtake during the braking.

“I need to do one step in that direction to fight for the victory because every time we are closing and in the last part of the race we are faster than the top.”