Francesco Bagnaia labelled his Thai MotoGP victory as a “stressful” race but a must-win for his mental state.
The Italian secured his ninth Grand Prix win of the season after he took the lead on lap 5 when Jorge Martin ran wide at Turn 3.
His nearest challenger, Marc Marquez, crashed out despite the Spaniard attempting to take the lead twice.
Bagnaia closed the championship gap from 22 points to 17 with two rounds left at Sepang and Valencia.
“Absolutely,” was his response when pressed if Sunday’s race was a must-win scenario. (Via Crash.net)
“In terms of championship, not too much. But in terms of feeling, in terms of mental side, it was very important – not just for me, but also for him.
“So, it’s a good day for us for everything. And the 17 [points] that is the gap is a good number for me.”
“It was a day to make the difference and luckily we did it.
“I want to dedicate this victory to my team, because after the morning we just sat down and spoke about what to do to improve the situation because I was struggling a lot on braking.
“And we did it, again. I’m so happy. It wasn’t an easy race because it was very long and stressful, but as soon as I started I saw my feeling was very good and I saw Jorge pushing a lot.
“But I just decided to wait two more laps to make sure the rear was more ready, and as soon as it was I just tried to catch him back.
“Then I opened the gap, but Marc was pushing hard. The lap he crashed just we were two tenths faster in sector three, so it was an incredible lap already and the pace was super strong.
“I knew it was important that I finished first rather than second to gain more points for the championship.”
Francesco Bagnaia recovered from his Sprint race struggles
On Saturday, the two-time MotoGP champion stated that his Sprint race struggles were due to his performance in sector three.
The Torinese rider stated: “We’ll have to analyse the data as I didn’t feel comfortable with the front-end tyre; I was struggling under braking and, generally speaking, to make the best use of it – I had a hard time especially in sector three.
“The pace, however, was more or less equal to the other frontrunners.”
Sunday saw a dramatic improvement, and he claimed his first win in Thailand in MotoGP and now has won exactly half of the races this season.
“Because I always crashed, but I was always not fast enough,” he said.
“Two years ago I was fighting for the win [in the wet in Thailand], but I finished two seconds behind the leader.
“The pace was there but not enough. Today from the start I believed a lot on trying to do it, and it was the best time.”
