Francesco Bagnaia was expecting Jorge Martin track limits penalty in Thai sprint

Francesco Bagnaia says he was expecting Jorge Martin to get a track limits penalty in the MotoGP Thai Grand Prix sprint, believing the Pramac rider ran off four times.

Martin was forced to recover from fifth on the opening lap after an ambitious attempt to take the lead from poleman Bagnaia led to him running wide at Turn 1.

The Pramac rider eventually made his way up to second after passing Bagnaia with a brave move up the inside of Turn 7 on lap seven, but then ran onto the green painted area beyond the kerb.

This netted Martin a track limits warning, while a second infraction followed on lap nine.

Bagnaia, who has lost two points to Martin in the standings to swell his deficit to 22, was anticipating his rival would be penalised as he counted four track limits transgressions.

However, on the lap analysis sheets provided by Dorna Sports, Martin was officially only registered as having exceeded track limits twice. Doing so three times earns a rider a long lap penalty.

“Honestly, I thought it and I started to count because as soon as I saw twice, I said ‘Ok, one more is a penalty’, and I counted two more,” Bagnaia told the media, including Crash.net, on Saturday.

“But maybe I counted wrong, because I didn’t see anything. So, maybe I was wrong. But the pace today was so intense that it was tough to remain on the corner line.”

Bagnaia defended Martin, however, noting that the pace was such in the sprint that it was easy to run wide.

“Honestly, we were on an incredible pace,” he added.

“Right now, when you are riding like that it’s difficult to have a chance of an overtake. Our pace was that strong that he touched the green four times. This is because the pace was incredible.”

Martin beating Bagnaia to second means the former can finish second in every race now to the end of the season and still win the championship.

Commenting on his sprint, Bagnaia knew his hopes of victory were gone after the first few laps as he wasn’t as strong in braking as he was on Saturday morning when he romped to pole.

“It was more gone after two, three laps, understanding that my feeling was not ideal like it was this morning,” he explained.

“I was struggling a lot to be competitive on the braking. My fastest sector during the weekend were sector one, sector three. And today I was losing there.

“So we have to analyse this afternoon on the box. We luckily lost just two points and tomorrow we have to just try to close this gap because it’s true that Jorge can finish second every race and still be champion.

“But I’m quite sure he will not finish every race second: he can win, finish fifth, crash. So, it depends a lot.

“But we have to be focused more on our results and be perfect because today I was thinking to be more competitive, and then in the race I was struggling.”

Bagnaia also saw no issues with Martin’s aggressive start which lost both of them positions as the Pramac rider tried to come from third into the lead at Turn 1.

“My start was very good,” Bagnaia said.

“Then he released the brakes and went wide out of the track. I was expecting an overtake there because he was on the inside.

“But when I tried to cross he was accelerating to don’t lose time.

“So, then he lost time because there was Marc [Marquez] and we cross the line like this, so there wasn’t much room here to reduce gas.

“He had a bit of chaos out of the first corner. But for me both overtakes were clean.”