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Despite the crash, yesterday Bagnaia managed to stay on top of the standings by just one point. Today, however, he had to surrender and hand back the first place in the championship to Martin. Pecco had been leading the race for 11 laps before realizing that he had no more weapons to fight with. First Jorge then Bastianini passed him and at that point the third step of the podium became the best possible result. "It could definitely have been better, but after yesterday's crash I limited the damage," said the world champion trying to see the glass half full.
What was the problem?
"All weekend I never felt good with the front tire and Enea was good at being able to be softer on the tires in certain situations, that's how he made the difference. First I want to check all the data because I want to understand what I did wrong. I thought I was handling everything well, but when Jorge passed me I realized I was struggling with the front. Today third place was my best possible result, Martin and Bastianini were faster than me."
Sometimes you have to settle for the place?
"Yesterday I crashed and today I was in danger of going down again, at turn 7, but I managed to hold the bike up. At that point I just thought about getting to the end, managing the margin from the riders I had behind. It wasn't too difficult to do that, but by the last lap I had nothing left. I would say it was a positive weekend because I was competitive despite the difficulties, the next race will be in Austria and I will try to do well there."
Does it bother you that you are no longer leading the standings?
"No, because it will be like that until the end of the championship. I obviously prefer to be the prey than the hunter, because being in front always makes a difference. But being first or second with less than a race gap in terms of points doesn't change much."
Before the summer you said the title fight would be between you and Martin, is there now a third interloper?
"I've always known about Enea's speed, the only thing he lacked was consistency of results, and I think this result can give him a lot of motivation to be able to close the gap in the championship. I think he will be able to fight for the title until the end. This weekend he made up 21 points on me, we'll see, but it will definitely be tough until the end."
You won't be able to count on your teammate as an ally for the title....
"Next year Enea will change teams, and I never thought about getting help from him. It's normal, we all want to win."
Why did you have more problems with the tires than other riders with the GP24?
"I turn the bike with the front and you can only do that when you have support from the tire, which I didn't have today. With the medium in several corners the wheel would lock up, I couldn't stop and I always came a little wide, so I had to use the gas to close the corner and I wore out the rear. That's my riding style and it's hard to change it for a weekend, also because we usually ride hard."
Today's is your podium number 43 in MotoGP, no one has done that many on the Ducati.
"It's a good number, it's starting to be quite big. When you have the best riders on the same bike you can get these results. There are eight of us with a bike that can win every Sunday, we compare ourselves and it's also a motivation to improve."
