Francesco Bagnaia knows "Enea Bastianini will not help me”

Francesco Bagnaia said he cannot count on Enea Bastianini actively helping him at this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix in his title battle with Jorge Martin.

However, the Italian knows he needs Bastianini’s influence at the front this weekend in order to take points away from Martin — for whom second place to Bagnaia in each of the four remaining races will be enough to clinch the title — since Bagnaia and Martin have such a pace advantage over the rest of the field.

“We already know before starting the race weekend, I was already knowing that the worst situation for Jorge [Martin] is finishing second, because we are a little step in front of all the others,” Bagnaia said.

“I really hope that Enea [Bastianini] will do a step tomorrow to close a bit the gap, but I also know that he will not help me, so I need to be a little bit faster than both.”

Bagnaia was strong from the beginning of FP1 in Sepang, and for only the second time in his MotoGP career he topped both practice sessions on Friday.

“I know how important it [Friday] is, and I love the track,” Bagnaia said.

“Like Assen, I know that when the track is going this well for me, it’s easier to go fast.”

The Italian had a small run-in with Martin in FP1, with both cruising down the back straight before Martin eventually decided to speed off and get on with his session alone.

Bagnaia explained that the situation was “Nothing, he decided he needed to start behind me, and I just aborted to not let him see what I’m doing.”

Normally, Bagnaia’s Friday strategy is to use only one rear tyre on Friday morning to have more available for the rest of the weekend, but today in Malaysia he switched to the strategy often used by Jorge Martin: to take a new tyre at the end of the session.

This weekend, Michelin has a hard-compound rear tyre and a medium-compound rear tyre, and Bagnaia took a fresh medium at the end of FP1 in order to prepare himself better for Practice on Friday afternoon.

“Even if this morning we started with the hard [compound] rear tyre, that is a very hard tyre that is not working very well, but the pace was good and my feeling was good with it,” Bagnaia said.

“Then, we decided to go with a medium [compound] rear [tyre] already in the FP1, to start the Practice with a very worse situation.

“I know that the consumption of the rear tyre in this track is huge, [so] it was important to start in the worst situation to have already a drop and try to be competitive the same. And it worked very well.”

Bagnaia’s strongest part of the track was sector four, whereas he was losing out in sector two.

He explained that this is because of the braking for the last corner, which suits his style, while in sector two there was one area he needed to improve.

“I think in sector one we are all very similar because it’s just three corners — a brake, a slow corner, and an exit — so I think sector one we are everybody very similar,” Bagnaia said.

“I am losing time in sector two, but I already know where, so this is already good; and sector three, sector four, I’m doing a very good job.

“Normally in sector three, it was a sector where I was struggling a bit, but we improved and I feel very good there; and also sector four, with this hard braking in the last corner, it’s one of my best parts — I’m happy with the feeling on that sector.”