“Angry” Francesco Bagnaia explains how he lost Misano MotoGP sprint to “better” Jorge Martin

An “angry” Francesco Bagnaia says a poor start with his Ducati’s clutch and an overheating front tyre in the MotoGP San Marino Grand Prix sprint allowed Jorge Martin to beat him.

Bagnaia topped Friday practice at Misano and then qualified on pole with a new lap record on Saturday morning, while championship leader Martin struggled to fourth.

But at the start of the 13-lap sprint, Martin launched himself into the lead ahead of Bagnaia and headed him to the chequered flag to extend his championship advantage to 26 points.

Bagnaia ran close with Martin in the first half of the sprint, but by the chequered flag the gap between the pair was 1.495s.

The Italian says he is frustrated with himself because he fluffed his start. And because his pace was so similar to Martin’s, he couldn’t find anywhere to overtake him and subsequently overheated his front tyre.

“I’m angry with my performance, because I did a bad start, I didn’t find a good start with the clutch and I lost the first place,” Bagnaia told TNT Sport.

“And we know perfectly how difficult it is in this track to overtake when you have the same pace as the guys in front of you.

“I was trying the first laps but then the front tyre became too hot and I started losing it.

“So, I didn’t have any chance of overtaking Jorge. This afternoon he was just faster… not faster, but he did a better job for sure.

“We have to improve for tomorrow because we can’t do another start like this.”

Bagnaia also noted after jumping off his Ducati: “I was losing a bit on the exits of Turns 6, 8 and 10, I was sliding quite a bit on the bike, I was behind and everything changed.

“When you're riding alone everything is perfect, but when you have dirty air the bike behaves differently.”

After his difficult Aragon weekend, Bagnaia says it was “important” he still managed to finish second - even if he has ceded more ground to Martin in the standings.

Looking ahead to the grand prix, Bagnaia believes it will be a different race to the sprint on the medium rear.

This was the tyre Bagnaia put some impressive race pace on in Friday practice, though he thinks some will try and use the soft.

“For sure, after what happened in Aragon, it was important to finish the race - doing the maximum, but finishing the race,” he added.

“And we did it. But for tomorrow it will be a different race with the medium.

“You can’t push like you want with the medium and you have to be more careful in the first laps.

“I think that some riders will try to go with the soft because today it was quite good apart from in the last two, three laps. But I think it will also be a good choice for tomorrow.”