Francesco Bagnaia has apologised for “being a bit too strong in his words” about Alex Marquez in the aftermath of their clash at the Grand Prix of Aragon last weekend.
Bagnaia had been chasing down Marquez for third before the Gresini rider lost the front of his GP23 at Turn 12, rejoining the track without looking and made contact with Bagnaia, taking both riders out of the race.
Ducati’s Bagnaia was quick to criticise Marquez post-race, saying that he was riding “dangerous” and suggested that the Spaniard had crashed them out on purpose.
However, when facing the media ahead of this weekend’s race in Misano, the two-time world champion apologised to Marquez for his comments.
“First of all, I want to say sorry to Alex for the strong words I said to him,” the Italian said (via Motorsport.com).
“I said in the interviews after the race, I was very angry for what happened, and looking at the telemetry was even worse for my point of view.
“In any case, I was a bit too strong in my words. I didn’t want to say that he made me crash on purpose.
“The thing was that his defence was a bit aggressive, like it’s normal when you’re fighting for podium positions and I’m still thinking the same about the incident but the words I said were a bit too much and I say sorry to Alex.
“Sometimes the angriness makes you say something that you don’t think. From my point of view, he came to our office to say sorry for what happened.
“Enough said. We are two riders, we have two different points of view and respect.”
Marquez accepted the apology from Bagnaia, considering the matter closed, though claimed that the damage to his reputation had already been done.
The Gresini rider published a statement to his social media channels earlier in the week stating that he would “never deliberately crash with another rider” following the backlash from the incident.
“The fact that he apologised, I like it and it’s something I’m very thankful to him for his words,” Marquez said.
“But also it’s true that the damage to my person, my team and also to my riding image has already been done.
“[Having] said that, I want to close this chapter. I don’t want to speak anymore about that, I’m looking forward.
“We are coming from a real positive weekend in Aragon, so we look forward [to Misano].”
