Francesco Bagnaia was pleased to see that his approach in MotoGP’s Catalan Grand Prix worked as he became the first factory Ducati victor in Barcelona since 2018.
The opening laps saw Jorge Martin and Pedro Acosta pull clear from the Italian, but the latter crashed out and then Bagnaia hunted down and passed the Pramac rader.
Bagnaia revealed post-race that he had been nursing his tyres in the early stage to mount a charge in the closing stages, leaving him satisfied his gameplan delivered.
“The pace, I just decided to remain [as] constant as possible and don’t push at the start like Martin and Pedro, and it was the correct choice,” Bagnaia told Autosport.
“Because then in the last laps I was able to be very fast and controlling the pace, so I’m just very happy, just very happy
“When they overtook me I just tried to do one lap [with] a bit more push.
“But I saw the front tyres were a disaster, the consumption couldn’t be much aggressive on the rear and it was a disaster.
“So I decided to control it more. And after 10 laps I started to see that my strategy was working.
I was a bit scared at the moment but it worked. And as soon as I arrived to Jorge it was important to overtake him for the pressure of the front.”
With five laps to go, the Italian slotted his bike down Martin’s inside into the threatening Turn 5, which saw several crashes from multiple riders throughout the weekend.
When pressed about his overtake on Martin, he said: “I decided to do it in corner five, a bit just for what happened yesterday.
“Because yesterday I crashed there in a very strange situation. So I just decided to bust a myth. Yeah, and it worked well.”
He added: “I lost 12 points in very…pfff! I take it slower and I crashed so this is something I will never accept.
“And today I did it again but much much slower because the gap was more and I decided to do it very slowly and it worked but corner five is very, very tricky.
“We saw many, many crashes during the weekend and it was very important for me to finish the race.”
