Francesco Bagnaia admitted that his setup choice “didn’t improve” the GP24 Ducati’s performance during the MotoGP Sprint race.
Bagnaia brought the bike home in fourth after qualifying in fifth place and was a considerable distance behind championship rival Jorge Martin in both sessions.
At the halfway point, the two-time defending champion was as high as second before being overtaken by Marc Marquez and team-mate Enea Bastianini.
Martin extended his championship lead to 16 points over Bagnaia after the Spaniard produced a flag-to-flag victory.
Bagnaia revealed that the setup choice was wrong, but there is still time to rectify any issues with the bike ahead of Sunday’s main race.
“Honestly, not really satisfied or happy, but more than this was difficult today,” Bagnaia reflected to MotoGP.
“From this morning, I struggled a bit in the dry conditions with the wind. What we did yesterday was improving my feeling a lot, but it was not working today.
“So, we tried different things for the race.
“We changed the set-up a bit, and what was good started to get worse and what was bad this morning was the same.
“So, we didn’t improve anything, and even it was worse. For tomorrow I’ve identified what to do and I think it’s something that could work well.
“But we have to wait and try tomorrow morning in the warm-up, hoping to have dry conditions to test it well. I think Martin in this moment is much faster.
“Today he was playing with us. But let’s see tomorrow.”
Francesco Bagnaia reveals his setup changes for Sunday
Bagnaia disclosed that the wind was a pivotal factor in why he was far off the pace.
The Torinese rider revealed he would make amendments to his front tyre as it caused him to lose the front when entering corners.
“The pace was not bad to put up a fight, but it was surely worse than yesterday’s and this is why we have to analyse the data and understand how to move forward ahead of tomorrow.
“I tried to bridge the gap with Jorge (Martín) but the wind was bothering me quite a lot, especially in the fast corners.”
“[I need] to have a bike that helps me to close the lines more and feel the wind less because I was entering all the fast corners feeling like the front was like a sail,” he added.
“Entering [corners] the effect was to push me wide and lose the front.
“So, it was quite difficult to close all the lines.
“I tried to close back the gap to Jorge, but as soon as I had to push more I started to struggle more. So, I had to go back and try to finish as far in front as possible.”
