Francesco Bagnaia enthused after his commanding Spanish Grand Prix success that he and Ducati had finally “found what we were missing” during the opening races of the 2022 MotoGP campaign.
The factory Ducati pilot led every lap from pole at Jerez to score not only his first race win of the year, but also his maiden rostrum of the campaign after struggling to get a handle on Ducati’s 2022-edition of its Desmosedici prototype.
The Italian was forced to sustain consistent pressure from reigning premier class world champion in his quest to score Spanish supremacy, though he was left thrilled following the encounter that he was now “back in best shape” after finally unlocking the secrets of his new steed.
“For sure we are back in best shape, not physically but in terms of my riding,” explained Bagnaia.
“I want to get home and recover because I think that today we have finally found what we were missing.
“It (start) was so important because of the conditions because it was really easy to cause the front (tyre) pressures to go high, I think it was the best start I’ve ever done in a race so I’m very happy about that.
“I just tried my best to not give Fabio (Quartararo) the possibility to fight with me because I know he is very strong with that, and in the last part of the race I was struggling a bit with rear grip so I just pushed and tried to keep a gap to him and not have a battle.
“I tried to put in one of my best last laps ever because I knew that if he was there the fight would have been very strong.”
Bagnaia added that he managed to find his feeling with the Ducati last weekend in Portimao, and that he it took him longer than he would have wanted to utilise the new challenger’s strengths relative to the machine with which he finished second in the 2021 standings.
“For sure this bike has better things (relative to 2021 edition) but also worse areas too, so it’s important to understand how to ride it because it is a bit different,” continued the now five-time MotoGP race victor.
“In Portimao I worked out how (to ride it), it’s not a big difference but in this situation small things are important so today everything was OK.
“We started working from FP1 and we were always close to the top, so I want to continue like this.”
