Quartararo is anything but cocky, so he squirmed in his seat when a journalist passed on the comment during the podium media conference.
“I feel I’m at my best level but I don’t want to be pretentious,” he said. “But it’s a nice compliment from Aleix [who just happens to be his neighbour in Andorra].”
Of course, Bagnaia’s (very nearly) start-to-finish victory shouldn’t be overlooked. When you’re equalizing records established by Casey Stoner you can be pretty sure you’re doing a good job.
The only other Ducati rider to have won three consecutive MotoGP races is 2007 champ Stoner, who did the hat-trick twice, in 2007 and again in 2008. True, the Desmosedici is an immeasurably better motorcycle now, but the opposition is also stronger than it was a decade and a half ago.
Bagnaia was perfect yesterday, like he always is, except when he isn’t and makes mistakes, like when he crashed out at Le Mans and Sachsenring (mistakes which he blamed on relaxing too much).
Bagnaia’s boots after the race – new for every weekend and already a bit second-hand
Dorna
His current progress is real a worry for Quartararo, whose championship advantage is evaporating. If you do the maths you’ll see that in three races Bagnaia has more than halved his points deficit, from 91 to 44. That’s a rate of 16 points per race and all the Italian needs to win the title is to score seven more points at each race over the last seven rounds, starting at Misano, his home track, next week.
Front tire temperature and pressure has been one of the biggest, most controversial talking points during 2022 but was hardly mentioned at the three tracks before Red Bull Ring: Sachsenring, Assen and Silverstone. This isn’t because the problem has been fixed, it’s because those three tracks are mostly fast and flowing, with minimal heavy braking and turning into slow corners.
Red Bull Ring is all about heavy braking and turning into slow corners, so front tire temperature and pressure talk was back last weekend and front tire choices depended on each rider’s strategy for the race.
Bagnaia and Miller were confident they would run at the front, enjoying the cool air that brings, so they both chose soft front compounds. The soft gave more grip, so it was the safer option, even though it was more squidgy, so it made bikes less stable on the brakes.
All the other fast Ducati riders also choose the soft – Bastianini, Martin and Zarco – because they had too hopes of running at the front. More surprisingly, Quartararo went for the soft front, even though he surely knew would spent much of the race surrounded by red-hot Ducatis, radiating massive heat towards his front tyre.
Bagnaia and Miller fighting for cooler air to cool their front tires
Dorna
Probably just as well that Quartararo changed his mind on the grid, switching from the soft to the hard front. But this is why it took him a while to reach his maximum pace in the early stages.
“I struggled a bit to warm up the hard front,” he said. “Then I was super-aggressive and made many mistakes but I saved them.”
Bastianini, perhaps with an eye on the rising track temperature, also switched from a soft to a hard front on the grid. Sadly, his race ended early while he was in the lead group, when he dented his front wheel rim running on a kerb.
The fact that both factory Ducatis used the soft front explains why they contested the lead so hotly for several laps. The goal wasn’t simply to lead the race for the sake of leading, it was to bless your front wheel with cool air, instead of cooking it with the heat coming off the lead bike.
“To be safe we used the soft front tire even though it wasn’t the best because I had a lot of front locking,” explained Bagnaia, who when Miller briefly got past immediately counterattacked to prevent his front tire getting hotter.
“I was already having a lot of movement from the front, so I said, ‘If I stay behind him I’ll surely have too much pressure in the front tyre’. So when he overtook me I tried to drop my lap times and open a gap.”
And that’s exactly what he did, leaving Miller to worry about Quartararo.