Pecco Bagnaia forced to front up after seventh DNF of 2024

Francesco Bagnaia says his approach to MotoGP races will not change at the Indonesian Grand Prix despite a seventh DNF of 2024 casting him further back in the points.

The reigning double world champion had strong pace throughout last weekend’s Emilia Romagna GP round, as he qualified on pole and then won the sprint.

But problems with his Michelin tyres meant his pace was nowhere for the first half of the grand prix before he was then able to push towards the leaders.

Bagnaia then crashed on lap 21 of 27 while running third, allowing Jorge Martin in second to take a 24-point lead in the standings having been just four clear after the sprint.

It marked his seventh non-finish of the year, which is two more non-scores than he tallied up in 2022 and 2023 when he won the title.

“I will approach it like always: pushing, trying to be competitive, trying to win races,” he said on Thursday at Mandalika.

“I’m now 24 points behind, so it’s not a lot but it’s also not a few.

“So, I think I still need to approach this part of the season in an aggressive way and after these two races I will maybe change my strategy. But at the moment I have to push a lot.”

Michelin said after the Emilia Romagna GP that it needed time to analyse the data from Bagnaia’s tyres to determine what went wrong.

On Thursday in Indonesia, the Italian still had no concrete explanation for what went wrong with his tyres at Misano.

“About what happened with the pace, it’s difficult to say something,” he noted.

“The start of the race, it was very difficult to push. I was not having a great feeling with the rear tyre.

“We spoke a lot with Michelin, we tried to work together like always to develop and improve together.

“About the crash, it’s something that it’s not the first time it’s happened.

“It was my mistake, but as soon as you are not pushing that hard on the brakes and your bike is more aligned, it’s easier to lose the front.

“But it’s something we’ve seen this season. It was a strange Sunday because I was feeling super good all the weekend and in the race I was struggling to repeat the same pace I was doing in practice.

“We are already focused on this weekend. It was good last season, just on Sunday, but we’ll take what we did on Sunday and try to be competitive the rest of the weekend.”