Francesco Bagnaia says he felt ‘nervous’ ahead of his fight-back to second in the Portuguese Grand Prix after having his Saturday pole time deleted, forcing him to start from 11th.
Bagnaia banged in a tour over three-tenths clear of anyone else in the closing stages of qualifying, but swiftly found himself dumped back to 11th after being found guilty of a yellow flag infringement following a crash for KTM’s Miguel Oliveira.
The Ducati pilot recovered well during the race to make his way up to second six laps from the end of the encounter, moving him into second in the riders points standings heading to Jerez-15 points in arrears of Doha and Portuguese GP victor Fabio Quartararo.
The ’18 Moto2 world champion says he found it “difficult to think about a podium” after losing his record breaking qualifying effort, conceding that second “was the best result possible” owing to the lighting pace set by the ultimately victorious Yamaha racer.
“Yesterday (recovery from 11th to second possible) I was nervous after the qualifying when my lap was cancelled, so it was difficult to think about a podium,” said Bagnaia.
“This morning in the warm-up I was very strong, then in the first part of the race I was struggling with the full fuel load.
“I tried to set my pace and was recovering positions and catching every rider in front of me, (Johann) Zarco was the last one and he was struggling more than me with the rear tyre but then I felt the drop after about 20 laps.
“In the last five laps I started to suffer with the rear, but in any case I’m happy as today the best result possible was second as Fabio (Quartararo) was impossible to catch because he had the same pace as me.
“I tried to achieve the best result I could and we are now second in the championship which is great, so we have to continue in this way but I think we can be on this level for the whole season.”
Bagnaia reckons that he is stronger “in my mentality and preparation” relative to his previous two premier class campaigns, he says partly brought on by the high expectations riders need to deal with as part of competing for a factory operation.
“I’m in a factory team, and as part of the factory Ducati team you have to always be on top and we demonstrated that we can do that because in a race like this I was so far behind but we still recovered positions which wasn’t easy,” continued Bagnaia.
“This shows that we are strong and are working very well, Jerez last year was one of the best races I’ve done where I was going to finish on the podium before my problem so we need to continue like this.
I feel stronger now (compared to last year) in my mentality and preparation so I’m confident I’ll arrive much stronger there (Jerez) this year.”
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