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After the Aragon weekend, Bagnaia probably managed to understand those who claim that Lady Luck is blind, but on the other hand her counterpart bad luck has an infallible aim. In three days everything that should not have happened happened and the trip to Spain left a lot of pains on on Pecco's body and soul, without even a minimum of joy. He arrived at Alcaniz with a 5-point lead over Martin, but he left 23 behind, losing 8 on Saturday and 20 on Sunday. Worse was almost impossible to imagine.
Clearly, the clash with Alex Marquez was the climax of the weekend, but - like any self-respecting thriller - there were many twists and turns to get to the epilogue. Let's see what happened and whether the world champion could have handled the situation differently.
Friday: a good day doesn't necessarily start from the morning
Although Bagnaia is famous for not paying too much attention to the stopwatch in the first free practice session, seeing him second-to-last almost 2 seconds behind Marquez is a bit too much even for a diesel like him. He looked flooded, unfocussed, unrecognizable. He was the onewho in the evening said why: "a problem that does not depend on me or the team and that made us throw away the entire session." Pecco was very enigmatic about it and all in all not too angry because anyway, in the afternoon's pre-qualifying, he brought home a 6th place that made him safe for Q2 and had also shown all in all a good pace with the medium tires.
The next day, we would understand more clearly that the world champion had it in for the tires. Piero Taramasso would later explain to GPOne, that "in that session the conditions were very bad and using the soft on the front with the medium on the rear complicated things even more."
The day had been partially straightened out, however, and Marc Marquez predicted that Bagnaia would come close if conditions remained stable.
Saturday: the tire of discord
That was something however that did not happen with the overnight rain. After an interlocutory free practice session (Bagnaia was 11th), qualifying did not go badly. Pecco took the front row thanks to the third quickest time, and would start in front of rival Martin, so little harm was done by the 8 tenths of a second (plenty) inflicted by Marquez, who continued to practice another sport. In the end, the Piedmont rider's goal was to stay ahead of Jorge.
But that did not happen either. The start in the Sprint was a disaster, with the #1 Ducati snaking around dangerously at the go (and, ironically, Alex Marquez was really good at avoiding it), but the worst was yet to come. Pecco was in obvious trouble and, by his own admission, only the 'big engine' of his Ducati allowed him to score one point.
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On his return from the pit box he was furious and the gesture he made to the Michelin technician with his fingers was unmistakable: 2, hinting that he had now found two tires that did not work. The one in FP1 and the one in the Sprint. Taramasso admitted "a graining phenomenon on both sides of the front tire," but he also pointed out that Pecco was not the only one to suffer from it. Track conditions and a setup that was not particularly spot on (due to the short time available to work) were the causes put forward by the French tire manager. Here we have to trust one or the other, because the elements to tell you who is right we have none and never will.
Sunday: chronicle of a disaster foretold
Obviously, it had rained on the night between Saturday and Sunday as well, and the warm-up was irrelevant (Marquez did not even participate). The riders however were given 10 minutes to practice their starts on the grid, after the problems at the start the day before. Bagnaia, however, did not take full advantage of them.
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As you can see in the video above, team manager Davide Tardozzi scrambled to point Pecco to the 3rd position box so he could practice his start from there and clean it up. The world champion, however, for some reason did not take up the suggestion.
The start of the race was worse than in the Sprint, with the Desmosedici once again going sideways and Bagnaia coming in 7th at the first corner. Pecco started on the inside of the track, the dirtiest part. How did it go for the Moto3 and Moto2 riders who started from that same spot? Both Munoz and Canet came in 6th at the first corner. The comparison has relative value, because the conditions were very different, but mainly because the MotoGP bikes at the start (with the two lowering devices) are dragsters and the torque put down is not comparable.
We asked Michele Pirro in our Bar Sport (you can see it in its entirety HERE) if you can't act in some way on the electronics in low-grip conditions. "Yes, but then you start much slower, so it always pays to try it at full power," he excused Pecco.
The start aside, as the laps went by the world champion was finding hia pace and had the podium within his grasp. Martin was uncatchable (let's not even talk about Marc), but all in all a 3rd place would have been worth gold after such a complicated weekend.
Alex Marquez was now in a slump (probably from asking too much of his tires in the early laps) and Pecco was nibbling away at him 2 to 5 tenths every lap, as the chronology above shows. The podium was in his hands. Until the Spaniard's mistake, when he went long at Turn 11 and then made contact with Bagnaia at Turn 12.
You have seen the images over and over again. Alex said he didn't see Pecco, Bagnaia said that Marquez opened the throttle to hit him. The only good thing is that neither of them broke anything. No point talking about who is right or wrong, the FIM Stewards (like Pontius Pilate) washed their hands of the affair and blamed everything on the poor grip of the asphalt, the only person who cannot argue.
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To be honest, it seems strange that Alex did not see Bagnaia, while we have to trust what the data say, because no one will ever show us. The question is another: could the accident have been avoided?
Again, Michele Pirro comes to our rescue: "those kinds of accidents can be avoided if one of them is willing to give way." Marquez and Bagnaia were fighting for 3rd place. For the Spaniard it would have meant getting on the podium together with his brother Marc in their home GP, a result worth a season considering how this 2024 is going for him. For Pecco to find some light in a dark weekend and, above all, to lose only 4 points from Martin.
The one who had the most to lose was the world champion, no doubt about it. Since it's easy to be wise after the event and the next day everyone is good at standing up as an expert on any subject (from bowls to quantum physics), it is logical to argue that Pecco could have waited. There were still more than five laps to go and Alex was now in his grasp. Now that the dust has settled, that would have been the best solution, especially for Bagnaia. Also because, as Pirro always pointed out, "His rivals never let Pecco go unnoticed." Because he has the number 1 on his fairing and when the other riders see it they get excited. Nothing strange, it happened to Valentino, Marquez and all the champions. It's part of the game.
The problem is that the riders are not in front of a chessboard, they can't have a cup of coffee evaluating the best move. Instinct wins in those situations, and the champion's instinct is to get in front, or not get passed. Probably, if he could go back in time Bagnaia would leave room for Marquez to pass him at the next corner, but what's done is done. Neither Pecco nor Alex will change their minds about what happened, and neither will the fans on either side. It is the good or the bad of the sport, you decide.
