Enea Bastianini secured an eighth-place finish in the Assen Sprint, but more importantly, he was the best KTM rider on the track on Saturday. Crossing the finish line right on Marc Marquez’s heels, Enea also got a close-up look at something more: he had the pace to get ahead, but not the tools to mount an attack.
The KTM, however, proved once again in the Netherlands to be a very fragile machine: just today, Pedro Acosta suffered two more technical failures. Bastianini knows this; he doesn’t pretend it isn’t an issue, but he also doesn’t race with disaster constantly on his mind. He trusts his team, keeps his eye on the long run, and in the meantime , holds on to a weekend that, at least so far, has been solid.
“So far, we’ve had a good weekend—pretty solid,” the Tech3 rider begins . “When we maybe lost a bit of ground, we managed to regain it right away, so I’d say it’s gone pretty well so far. It’s true, though, that today I was expecting a little more, since I was right there with the group and had the chance to go faster. But I couldn’t stay on Marc’s tail to try and attack him. That was kind of the limit today.”
Where were you losing ground to Marc? Coming out of the corners?
“Yes, we were losing ground under acceleration. As for top speed, we’re not doing too badly, but the problem is that we were already too far behind by the time we reached the end of the straights, so I couldn’t attack him. The only place where I was much more effective was between Turn 11 and Turn 12: there I was really able to stay right on his tail. The problem is that then Turns 13 and 14 came up, and Marc is really strong on the left. On that section, I couldn’t do anything, and as a result, I couldn’t even set up the braking point for Turn 15 properly. But still, getting up there at the front, with a fairly small gap, is good.”
It almost seemed like you had a bit more pace and that Marquez was holding you back a little.
“I think if I’d managed to pass him, I could have moved up a bit further. When I’m riding with no one in front of me, I ride better—I can even brake harder—so I think I would have had a slight advantage. But oh well, we’ll try again tomorrow.”
Acosta alone had two more technical issues today. This morning he even said his throttle got stuck open. As someone who rides a KTM, do you think about these things, or is the only way to race to not think about them?
“Obviously, you have to think about it, but no, I don’t think I’m reckless—I know what I’m riding. But I think the guys at KTM are doing a good job. There’s definitely a limit, but I don’t think Pedro had the same problem today. In theory, that can’t happen to me because I have a different type of throttle control; he has an electronic throttle. Of course, strange things do happen. But I have a lot of faith in my guys and my team, so I don’t think it’ll happen to me.”
Starting without a lowering device: did you like it or not?
“It’s strange, because obviously you start off slower and you’ve gone back to using the rear brake a bit, something we hardly ever did anymore with the lowering devices. We were a bit slower going into Turn 1. From my perspective, honestly, it hasn’t changed that much. Maybe it’s a bit safer, because the front end locks up less.”
How do you see tomorrow?
“First of all , we have to decide on the tyres, and that’s not an easy task. We didn’t do badly on the softs today, but we need to figure out how they wear. If we can use the softs, I think we can do well,” concluded the rider from Rimini.