Pecco Bagnaia points out “critical point” for Austrian MotoGP victory fight

Pecco Bagnaia took a four-second victory in the MotoGP Sprint in Austria, but an early battle with Jorge Martin and concerns over tyre pressures meant that it wasn’t necessarily as comfortable as the timing sheet suggests.

Bagnaia took the lead at the start, but was immediately embroiled in battle with Martin. When the Spanish rider went wide at the turn two chicane, Bagnaia was back in front, and never headed from that point on.

“It was very fun,” Bagnaia said of the early battle to MotoGP.com. “I enjoyed a lot, Jorge [Martin] was braking very hard, but I tried everything to be leading. As soon as he went wide I understand that he compromised his race because as soon as we finished the lap I saw that he didn’t lose one second.

“From that moment, I tried to be as patient as possible and as consistent as possible with the rear tyre. I think I did a really good job in the race, also to understand something for tomorrow.”

Bagnaia explained that the intensity of the battle between himself and Martin in the early stages of the race was about the front tyre pressure.

“If you are behind after two or three laps you can start having some issues with the pressure,” Bagnaia said. “It was too important to be leading.”

Bagnaia said that the hot conditions in Austria this weekend are contributing to the front pressure issues, as well as the lack of performance offered by the stronger hard-compound front tyre which is forcing riders into using the medium-compound front. Bagnaia described the situation as “a bit critical” after Saturday’s Sprint.

Compared to other weekends the issue is “More in this track because the temperature is very hot,” Bagnaia said, “and we have to go with the medium— a tyre that is not hard enough for the conditions, but is better than the hard. So, it’s a bit critical, but it’s the same for everybody.”

After Martin served the long lap penalty he picked up for cutting the chicane and not losing enough time (the one second that Bagnaia mentioned), Bagnaia’s closest challenger became Marc Marquez.

Initially, Bagnaia held his ground to Marquez at around 1.5 seconds, then his teammate-to-be took 0.3 seconds in one lap (lap nine). Marquez would crash out on lap 10, so how the relative pace of the two would have evolved in the closing stages of the race is not something that can be determined, at least not until tomorrow’s 28-lap Grand Prix. But Bagnaia is sure that he had things under control, anyway.

“Honestly, I was controlling well,” Bagnaia said. “I was just trying different maps for tomorrow’s race. I saw that he closed the gap a bit, he closed three tenths, but as soon as I saw it I just tried to push again, and he crashed. I didn’t have any thoughts to fight with Marc [Marquez] today.”