Bagnaia scored a key victory in Sunday’s race at Barcelona after coming on top in a close duel with title rival Martin, overtaking him on lap 19 of 24 with an impressive move on the inside at Turn 5.
It was the same corner at which he had slid off his factory GP24 on the final lap of Saturday’s half-distance contest, a crash that further widened his deficit to Pramac rider Martin in the championship standings.
Bagnaia was left “curious” by his fall on Saturday as he claimed he was circulating at a lower speed than before, but he found redemption in the grand prix by making the all-important pass going into that very left-hander.
After taking the chequered flag in first, Bagnaia gave a first bump while passing through Turn 5 on the cool-down lap, showing the significance of that corner to him in a topsy-turvy weekend.
Asked about his overtake on Martin, he said: “I decided to do it in corner five, a bit just for what happened yesterday.
“Because yesterday I crashed there in a very strange situation. So I just decided to bust a myth. Yeah, and it worked well.”
He added: “I lost 12 points in very…pfff! I took it slower and I crashed, so this is something I will never accept.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“And today I did it again but much much slower because the gap was more and I decided to do it very slowly and it worked but corner five is very, very tricky.
“We saw many, many crashes during the weekend and it was very important for me to finish the race.”
Bagnaia appeared to lose touch with Martin and then second-placed rider Pedro Acosta in the early stages of the race, dropping as much as a second behind the leading duo.
But the Italian revealed that he was saving his tyres to mount an attack later on, a strategy that paid dividends when not only was he able to reel in the Spaniard and take the lead but also build a buffer for himself in the closing laps.
“The pace, I just decided to remain [as] constant as possible and don’t push at the start like Martin and Pedro, and it was the correct choice because then in the last laps, I was able to be very fast and controlling the pace, so I’m just very happy, just very happy
“When they overtook me I just tried to do one lap [with] a bit more push, but I saw the front tyres were a disaster, the consumption couldn’t be much aggressive on the rear and it was a disaster.
“So I decided to control it more. And after 10 laps I…
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