Francesco Bagnaia believes that there needs to be a “bigger gap” between factory and independently-run MotoGP bikes in order to reduce early race incidents.
The factory Ducati ace was taken out in the early stages of the French Grand Prix after coming together with Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales, though several other riders also retired from the race after clashing – including a nasty shunt involving Luca Marini and Alex Marquez after the former lost the front of his VR46 Ducati at Turn 3 early on.
Speaking after the Le Mans encounter, reigning MotoGP world champion Bagnaia was outspoken on his views of trying to clean up the opening stages of races – the Italian reasoning that the fact the parity between factory and independent outfits in modern day premier class racing is so close is causing other rider’s to make highly-aggressive moves that in turn lead to more crashes.
“A rider behind you that doesn’t have the potential is looking to pass six riders in one lap, and it doesn’t work like this because we’re all on the limit looking for the maximum speed,” explained Bagnaia.
“If I’m braking on the limit, especially in the first part of the race, it’s wrong to brake beyond this limit.
“If you look the incidents are mainly in the first part of the races because there is a lot of agitation, so we should think about trying to improve the situation because it’s not safe like this.
“One thing I think is that from the first bike to the last, everybody can win and there is no longer a six or seven tenths gap between the factory and satellite bikes.
“Meanwhile the others were further behind because they didn’t have the potential but they also didn’t have the same technical level.
“Now the level is extreme with all the aerodynamics, everything is on the limit and everyone has the chance to win.
“For example Augusto Fernandez was fourth today, he’s a world champion but he’s also a rookie and the pace wasn’t that fast [at the French GP], apart from [Marco] Bezzecchi, and he just did the pace we all expected.
“The others were slow and that keeps the group together, so in my opinion there needs to be a bigger gap between the factory and the satellite bikes or at least find a solution to avoid these types of incidents.”
