Francesco Bagnaia remarked that an “improved first part of acceleration” from a standing start was important to make sure he could hold track position over the fast-starting KTM’s.
One crucial improvement that came from KTM’s enhanced 2023-specifcation RC16 is the prototype’s impressive start procedure, which has seen its riders jump multiple places from a standing start all season on a variety of different tracks and surfaces.
With track position such an important commodity in modern day MotoGP given the new tyre pressure rules as well as the difficulty in overtaking due to the ever-developing aero solutions on each bike – alongside innovations such as ride-height devices – maintaining or gaining positions off the start is a huge advantage.
Bagnaia said following his dominant Austrian Grand Prix display that improving the Desmosedici’s starts were one of the key things he requested from Ducati, the Italian’s stunning race getaways at the Red Bull Ring illustrating the step forward the marque has made in this regard – Bagnaia feeling that “we’ve closed the gap” to KTM in this area.
“We improved a bit the first part of the acceleration (from standing start), I felt our potential on the start could be higher and KTM was doing an amazing job (in this respect), we were close but we were always missing something in the first part of acceleration, and I think we’ve closed this gap,” explained Bagnaia.
“We improved a lot from Friday where I already had a good feeling, but I was still missing something.
“So we found something and today the race was really tricky because it was so hot, I knew the rear tyre could be a mess and the front tyre pressure was already high at the start.
“Right now we are working to understand how I can be better on that (front tyre pressure), but it’s definitely the best win of the season in terms of win and consistency.
“I was on my own and the pressure was already over the 2.0 (bar), and it becomes more difficult to ride over 1.9 so it wasn’t easy but we have to improve and get used to the new rules because it’ll always be like this from now.”
Bagnaia added that after converting his pole position into the early race lead, he found it “quite difficult” to maintain the pace he felt was necessary to beat KTM racer Brad Binder across the race distance.
“I tried to remain concentrated (with Binder pressuring) and paying a lot of attention with the gas because I could see that a good pace was a 1:30.1 or .2, but it was hard to be consistent at that pace,” continued Bagnaia.
“Then in the last ten laps I had no rear tyre, so it was quite difficult but I saw that I was able to remain on this lap time and the gap was opening to Brad so I was just trying to remain constant and push in the same way.
“I tried to take a warning with a few laps to go because a loss of concentration on this track makes it really easy to make mistakes, so I tried to remain at the same pace and just bring it home to the finish.”
