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A bad Saturday after an equally bad Friday. One can't really define Pecco Bagnaia's weekend at Aragon any differently, the second one that is not really going in the right way for the future Ducati factory rider.
We talked a lot about it yesterday with Bagnaia, and the problem seemed pretty clear, namely the lack of confidence with the front of his Ducati. A lack of communication with everything that happens on the GP20 which effectively prevents Bagnaia from pushing the way he knows how and can do. Yet Pecco is trying hard and the proof of this is the two crashes yesterday and today.
"What I can say is that today I certainly expected a bit more - explained Bagnaia - because I liked yesterday's modification and I thought I could go faster. But the only improvement I made was four-tenths in pace that is not enough for me, especially to make a time attack. In fact we will all start far behind, I'm talking about the Ducati riders."
Petrucci hopes to find a solution tomorrow morning. Do you think it is possible?
"I say that if in two race weekends we have not yet solved this problem, in my opinion in twenty minutes of warm-up it will be difficult. We will test with a modification to help me a bit, but it is nothing exciting. I don’t think it can solve the problems much. We are in a much better position on pace than we are for the flying lap and we’ll have to do the first laps a bit with our eyes closed, to try to make up positions immediately which would be the most important thing. With today's MotoGP it is right that it’s like that. "
The point is also that you are all very close and it doesn’t take very much to find yourself cut off.
"There is a very high level. I looked at the data first and last year in Q1 I started 15th with 1'48.7, today I dropped a second from last year and tomorrow I will be 18th. The level is very high and while others are doing well, we are struggling a lot with the 2020 tyres. I'm sure the race will go better, because my pace is better than many riders ahead of us, but that's not enough. We'll see tomorrow how the race goes and I’ve already been on the ground twice trying to be fast so tomorrow it will also be important not to crash. "
Today you actually had another crash …
"Always under braking, which should be my strong point as at all the tracks this season. Only here I can't take advantage of this strong point because every time I tackle braking with aggression I crash. It's very difficult, here the braking is fundamental and we are not fast in that phase. We lose time and when I tried not to lose time I crashed. Something that certainly doesn't help me. "
Do you think this is now a negative trend, or do you hope to find the good sensations experienced on the Ducati this season at Valencia?
"I hope that at Valencia it can be all right honestly. It's a very different track, here the curves all turn back a long way and this is a bit annoying, but that's no excuse. We've been strong this season on tracks that are historically unsuitable for Ducati, while this should be a pro-Ducati track and we are struggling. Maybe the new tyres make us suffer more in certain situations, especially when there is little grip. To give an example, maybe there was at Barcelona even less grip than here, but the situation was more controllable. Here, on the other hand, it is difficult to be consistent. In FP4, after the crash, my ideal lap is 4 tenths faster than what I did. This means that we cannot get the consistency to be fast in every lap".
