Francesco Bagnaia conceded that his hopes of securing victory in the Australian Grand Prix were curtailed after he “completely destroyed the front tyre.”
The Ducati rider recovered well from a poor start after struggling to engage his front ride height device to run within the top three for the bulk of the encounter, the Italian leading six of the final seven laps despite being put under severe pressure from eventual race winner Alex Rins’ Suzuki as well as Honda’s Marc Marquez.
He ultimately fell victim to Rins and Marquez at Turn 2 as he struggled to carry corner speed as a result of a “destroyed” front tyre, Bagnaia admitting post-race that he also prioritised bringing to Desmosedici to the flag having seen that chief title rival Fabio Quartararo had crashed out.
“For sure I had problems at the start trying to engage the front (ride-height) device, but I was totally focussed and tried not to think about it and tried to do the maximum, and in the early laps I was third so I managed to re-pass many riders in the early corners,” explained Bagnaia.
“I’m very happy with the result because it was not easy today, I just tried to manage the tyres perfectly.
“My goal was to win the race today, but when I saw on my board that Fabio (Quartararo) was out I just said the win is perfect, but the main thing is to finish and see what happens in the last laps.
“I completely destroyed the front tyre for the last six laps because I was not expecting this (to be a problem), I checked the front of the two guys in front and they both had clear front tyres so maybe I was forcing it too much I’m not sure.”
Bagnaia added that he feels the mistakes he had made during the year “made me learn my lesson”, the 2021 premier class vice-champion affirming that he is focussing on remaining “calm” to try and make the most of his now 14-point championship advantage across the final two races.
“We knew this track for us was going to be more difficult, our bike is very fast on straight but it is still trickier to get it to turn like the other bikes, and we know this is our weak point so we will keep working on it and we got to Malaysia where we think we will be good,” continued Bagnaia.
“When I saw they (Rins and Marquez) were overtaking me I said if I have the possibility I will attack, but not take any risk because I didn’t want to crash and wanted to finish because I have made many mistakes this year, I think this has made me learn my lesson.
“I just want to be calm and think about the next race, I’m not going to think about the championship and be smart, just taking each race as it comes.”
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