Francesco Bagnaia reckons that looking after his rubber in the simmering heat that afflicted the Dutch TT was “critical” in his quest to secure a fourth win of the year.
The Ducati pilot ran second in the early stages of the Dutch TT having been passed by a rapid-starting Brad Binder, though conscious of overheating his front tyre in the wake of the South African’s KTM Bagnaia snatched away the leadership before the third lap had been completed.
The reigning MotoGP world champion then had to walk the perilous tight rope between saving his tyres and not allowing the likes of Binder and pole-man Marco Bezzecchi a run at him, though Bagnaia ultimately executed the job perfectly to fend off Bezzecchi in the closing stages to secure a hard-fought win to extend his series lead to 35 over Jorge Martin heading into the summer break.
Bagnaia felt that looking after his medium compound tyres in the “critical” 51 degree track temperature was the main attribute that took him to victory, the Italian admitting that he felt at times he was “too slow” as he tried to keep something underneath him to fight off the advances of his rivals in the closing stages.
“It was very difficult conditions with 51 degrees Celsius on the asphalt were tricky with the tyres, but we managed to be consistent with the lap times,” explained Bagnaia.
“At times I was scared I was too slow but then I saw it was more or less the same for everybody so I just tried to manage the gap so I had some tyre for the end of the race, like when I saw Bez (Marco Bezzecchi) pass Brad (Binder) I knew I had to push because I knew he would be.
“I kept it at around 1 or 1.2 and then I was safe, but it (saving tyres) was quite critical.
“I said myself ‘I have to overtake Brad’ because if I left it any later the front tyre pressure would be too much, so when I overtook him I used more laps to understand everything.
“I tried not to pull a gap too soon and started to drop the pace lap by lap and I saw that when I got nine-tenths (of a second) Bez had overtaken Brad, but luckily my start was good and I was able to get near Brad sooner which I think helped me (compared to Bezzecchi).”
Bagnaia added that he had to “risk a bit more” once Bezzecchi – who had dominated the weekend up to that point by leading Friday, securing pole position and well as victory in the sprint race – finally made the move on Binder to claim second, explaining that he was suffering from extreme rear chattering as he tried to extract the most from his Desmosedici.
“I had to risk a bit more (when Bezzecchi moved to second) but this is normal as when you want to win you have to risk, and the first lap after he passed Brad he closed me by three-tenths so I knew I had to push a lot again,” continued Bagnaia.
“I was risking most on right-handed corners because the front was moving a lot and the rear was chattering so it was difficult to find a way to push, but I managed to keep the gap around a second and on the last lap I could take a breath.”
