Francesco Bagnaia said he “had to sacrifice a bit of performance” on his Ducati despite taking the MotoGP Sprint victory at Motegi.
Bagnaia started the race well from second on the grid and was trailing leader Pedro Acosta before the GasGas KTM rider crashed out of the lead of the race.
The Italian’s victory means the pendulum swings once more in the title battle, as he cut Jorge Martin’s lead in the riders’ standings down to 15 points after earning a “fundamental” six points.
“It was a very important day, in a day where it was important not to take too much risk,” Bagnaia told MotoGP.com.
“It’s fundamental to take as many points as possible, we get six compared to Jorge so I’m very happy.
“It wasn’t easy with the wet patches and it was starting to rain again a bit in the last part of the race, so it was a bit of an understanding situation, but I think we managed to do a very good job.
“It wasn’t easy to control the maps because without doing the slow lap in the sighting lap to better control the conditions, I had to sacrifice a bit of performance with the maps in the race and it wasn’t easy.
“In any case, I’m happy, we managed to win again and these six points are very important.”
Bagnaia admits ‘struggling’ in Pedro Acosta and Enea Bastianini Sprint battles
Bagnaia spent the majority of the MotoGP Sprint race following Acosta, and said that he knew that the rookie crashed because “he was pushing a lot” in the difficult conditions.
Acosta’s crash allowed Bagnaia to take the lead, which he was able to keep hold of despite a nervy final lap where he was pursued by current and future teammates Enea Bastianini and Marc Marquez.
The Ducati rider admitted this was management on his part after seeing his pitboard going onto the final tour of the circuit.
“I was thinking to try to let the front tyre breathe a bit and then try to push again because behind him, I was struggling a bit with braking the bike,” said Bagnaia.
“As soon as I said that, he crashed because he was pushing a lot.
“He entered a bit wider in that corner but he was doing a perfect job and considering the conditions it wasn’t easy.
“And honestly when I saw that I had 1.3 [gap to Bastianini] starting the final lap I said ‘ok I can slow down by a second’ and I did it, and it was good enough.”
Francesco Bagnaia believes Ducati ‘can be competitive’ in MotoGP race
The Sprint victory has given Bagnaia’s camp a massive boost after apparent struggles in the last few rounds.
While uncertain of the performance of the Michelin medium rear tyre, the Italian believes that the potential for Sunday’s race is promising after seeing Maverick Vinales’ practice pace on the Aprilia.
“It will be different [tomorrow] because I think we will race with the medium rear tyre and I don’t know the performance of anybody because we just did eight, nine laps in the Friday morning.
“Our performance could be very good, I saw that Maverick had the medium in the afternoon of practice and was very fast.
“So I think we can be competitive again, maybe even more.”
READ MORE: Francesco Bagnaia secures Motegi MotoGP Sprint race win
