The Bagnaia, or Ducati, mystery, depending on your point of view, moves to Malaysia. For Pecco, Sepang has always been a friendly track, and it's clear that his hopes are fuelled by remembering six good memories from the past. Not least because he needs to turn the page after his disappointing weekend at Phillip Island, not to mention the previous one at Mandalika.
"This is definitely a weekend I'm keen to start because it's a track I like, where I've always achieved good results - Bagnaia stated with optimism -There have been other circuits where I've gone strong in the past and this year I've struggled, so I'm just hoping to have good feelings on the bike, as happened a few races ago, and be able to work. However, even if I have problems, in my opinion the layout of this track can help us a little bit more, also thanks to having done the testing, to manage the situation better."
You first tested the GP24 at Sepang in February, what are your memories?
"They were very positive tests, I went well in both race pace and on the fast lap. I hope to be able to have those feelings again. I'm ready to go, we have some good ideas."
Will you be using the same bike from those tests?
"More or less, but in this situation we have to take things slowly. At a track like this I will have more time to try things, at Phillip Island the conditions did not help me and at Mandalika the grip increased over the weekend."
Did these days help you understand what originated the disaster in the Sprint in Australia?
"The setup, because for some reason I struggled a lot with the movement of the bike. In the warm up I tried an even worse solution and it was hard to imagine racing in those conditions. For the race we tried to calm the bike down and I crashed because I pushed too hard. This season I have often suffered from the problem of the rear pushing on the front under braking and corner entry."
Are you the only one among the Ducati riders?
"At the beginning of the season I was the only one with this problem and now Morbidelli is also starting to suffer from it. We are trying to understand why because if more riders started to have the same trouble it would be a problem for Ducati. We are trying to work in a different way to find a solution."
Valentino Rossi said he expects to see you competitive often, but he also admitted he doesn't understand what is going on.
"For all of us it's a difficult situation to understand, both for me and the technicians. We're trying to figure out what to do because this problem could reoccur for other Ducati riders as well."
There are those who are claiming that there's a conspiracy against you....
"Where are these rumours coming from? From social media? Well, what do you expect... (laughs)."
Can you alientate yourself from all this talk about you?
"I've noticed that in complicated times you pay more attention to what comes out and you see a lot of crap, in the true sense of the word. I've always been able to alienate myself from that, and I've always shown good performance when I've been comfortable with the bike. We've come to the conclusion that it's no longer a matter of adapting, it's a matter of function, so we're trying to figure out what the reason is."
Looking back, do you think you made any mistakes this season?
"Definitely yes, we aren't perfect. There were situations where I could have done more, but unfortunately it's not easy when you're struggling like that."