Pecco Bagnaia explains Barcelona MotoGP Maverick Vinales incident: “I lost the front”

Francesco Bagnaia topped MotoGP Practice for this weekend’s Solidarity Grand Prix of Barcelona, but the standout moment of his day was a bizarre crash in the practice start session after FP1.

Bagnaia fell in braking for turn one when he locked the front as Maverick Vinales passed him on the outside.

The Ducati Lenovo Team rider explained that he made a poor launch from the practice start, and was then spooked when Vinales emerged to his outside as he braked to enter the first corner.

“I missed the start, because my rear tyre spun,” Bagnaia said, adding that he slowed down to preserve his engine: “We are on the limit with the engine, so I didn’t want to push on that because you never know.

“So, my mistake I think was to slow down that much, but honestly when you are arriving that fast you go to the inside, and it was full of space on the inside.

“I started to hear him, and I think ‘Okay, he will go to the inside’, but as soon as I saw him arriving with an enormous speed on the outside, on the kerb, with the bike moving, I got scared, so I lost the front like this.”

He added: “It was like two bar more on the lever, from 11 bar to 13 bar, and I lost it.”

Despite the odd FP1 crash, Bagnaia’s day was positive overall, and he ended it fastest.

“I feel good, because it’s what I want every Friday on every race weekend: to start well, to feel well, and work well,” he said.

“We never did a step back, every run we were doing a step in front, so happy about it.

“Happy about the tyre choice, I think, because Michelin did a very good job this time — always — but this time for the tyre choice, because they gave to us a lot more options that are working, so very good, I’m happy for that.

“I just missed to try the hard [compound] front, that I saw that all the riders trying it were fast, apart from Jorge [Martin] who changed it.

“But [Marco] Bezzecchi and Aleix [Espargaro] took it also for the time attack and they were very fast, so I will try tomorrow morning if the conditions will be good. Apart from that, everything was good.”

Track conditions had surprised Bagnaia, because despite colder temperatures than May’s Catalan Grand Prix the track seemed to have less grip.

“I was thinking that it was faster, because honestly it’s colder and normally when it’s cold it’s faster, and also because we have a rear tyre that is very soft,” Bagnaia said.

“But as soon as I started this morning I felt that it was different, the level of grip is lower, so we needed to change something on the bike, but the condition is quite different [compared to May].”

Finally, Bagnaia focused on improving the area that he has identified as his major weakness in 2024: Sprints.

“I rode a lot with the fuel tank of the Sprint, that is smaller, and I feel the same as the Sprint because I struggle more to stop the bike like the Sprint race.

“We tried to do something on the bike to improve that and we did it, so I’m happy about it, but I still need something more.”