Francesco Bagnaia says that he “cannot be disappointed” with his third place at the American Grand Prix, the Italian is of the opinion that he and Ducati have done the “perfect job” since Austria.
The works Ducati racing driver qualified on pole position on the Circuit of the Americas with a brilliant performance of more than three tenths of a second faster than everyone else, but fell back to third place at the start – significantly behind title rival Fabio Quartararo – and was soon moved to sixth place as he struggled with tire grip in the early stages of the competition.
The two-time MotoGP race winner managed to make an effective re-promotion in the final stanza to save third place as his rivals faded, despite taking the checkered flag four seconds behind Quartararo and watching his distant championship chances take another hit as he moved into the last three events 52 behind the Yamaha rider.
Bagnaia accepted after the race that race winners Marc Marquez and Quartararo were simply faster than him in the racing conditions at COTA, although he insisted he was still “very happy” with the form Ducati as a whole had shown in one place , “we always had problems”. at.”
He added that his lack of pace in the early laps of the race was due to a “lack of grip” problem with his rear tire, a phenomenon that he believed was reflected by Marquez and Quartararo at Misano two weeks ago.
“I’m very happy, we got the maximum out of it as Fabio (Quartararo) and Marc (Marquez) were faster, so it was difficult, but we can’t be disappointed,” said Bagnaia.
“Yesterday we took pole position on a track where we always struggled, which was a good result, but reaching the podium is a different story because I tried from the start but I missed it the ambush.
“I spoke to Marc and Fabio and they said they had the problem in Misano that I had here, so I started with maximum grip and they didn’t, here it was the other way around.
“I started to see that the drivers in front of me were struggling a little and could see that the podium was there. The last part of the race wasn’t easy, but eventually we reached another podium and Fabio opened the point gap.
“That’s fine because we lost points on other tracks due to other situations, but we’ve been doing well since the summer break, learned a lot and kept going, so this is the perfect job.”
The work of the 2018 Moto2 World Champion to work his way back to the podium was made easier when his teammate Jack Miller allowed him to finish just above the middle distance in fourth place so he could follow Jorge Martin who did the ” great teamwork “by praised the Australian.
“Jack (Miller) took this step (and let him through) on his own because at first I thought he would fill the gap with Fabio and he does a really good job with the hard tire, but then it started to tighten a bit fight and then he caught up with him by about half a second per lap, ”Bagnaia continued.
“He let me pass, so I just have to thank him and for FP4, so we’re doing great teamwork because we’re always helping each other.
“I could see that Jorge (Martin) had more problems than me because he braked a long lap earlier.
“From Mugello we lost a bit (in form), but from Assen we had the same feeling as at the beginning of the season, and even better, I felt good every race and we were unlucky in Austria and Silverstone, but we did our best. “