“I’m not here to finish third” - Pecco Bagnaia after “difficult” Thai MotoGP race

The opening MotoGP race weekend of the year resulted in two third places for Francesco Bagnaia, something he said was below his expectations.

Bagnaia qualified third behind Alex and Marc Marquez on Saturday, and finished third behind the two brothers in both the Sprint and the Grand Prix, as the Spanish pair made history as the first siblings to be first and second in the MotoGP World Championship standings.

The Ducati Lenovo Team rider said that, while third was the “maximum” he could achieve in both races, it’s not what he goes racing for.

“I’m not here to finish third,” Bagnaia told the post-race press conference in Thailand.

“I learnt from last year that it’s important to take the maximum, and to take the correct risk.

“Today, I was just trying to manage the situation because I was a bit risking to finish third. I was there behind and every time I was trying to close the gap I was having problems with the front.

“So, it [third place] was the maximum I could [do]. I will never sign for a third place but it was the maximum I could [do], and next time I will try to be second and then, the time after, first.

“But I need to start working on my setup, on my bike, like we did from Saturday, and close the gap to them [Alex and Marc Marquez].”

Bagnaia explained that he was in delay during the Thai GP weekend due to problems he’d had at the test which pushed back some of his testing programme. That led to him arriving under-prepared for the race.

“On Friday we finished the job that we didn’t do in the test, so I needed to set up a bit more on Saturday morning, and I was a bit too late,” Bagnaia said.

“I didn’t try well the front tyres; yesterday I decided to go with the hard [compound front tyre] but it wasn’t the correct choice, and today I used the soft that was working much better but I think I wasn’t on the correct setup for trying to have an advantage.”

Bagnaia added that he felt his victorious teammate, Marc Marquez, had “played” with both Alex Marquez and himself, after the Spaniard dropped back from the lead into second place on lap seven and sat behind his brother, Alex, for 15 laps before finally passing on the penultimate lap and immediately opening a gap of over one second.

“I think that Marc [Marquez] today played a bit with us, also for his problem with the pressure (Marquez has explained that the reason he dropped back was to use the heat from another bike to heat his front tyre and increase the pressure); but as soon as he decided to go he gave to me like 2.3 seconds in three laps.

“So, he was much faster and I have to improve, learn what he’s doing better, and close this gap because I know that the next two race weekends [Argentina and the US] are very good for both of them but I need to be closer.”

Bagnaia felt that he was losing time to Marc Marquez in sectors two and three at the Buriram layout, and specifically in two corners to Alex Marquez, while being stronger than both in the track’s hard braking zones.

“I was very good in the hard braking – turns one, two, and 12 – and I wasn’t that bad in some corners, but I was losing too much in turns four, five, and six to Marc, and in turns seven and eight to Alex [Marquez].

“So, it was difficult for this reason. I tried to improve, but maybe I wasn’t in the best shape to fight against them.”