“Tomorrow will be a different story,” Francesco Bagnaia announced on Saturday evening after he had to admit defeat to World Championship rival Jorge Martin in the sprint for the first time since mid-May in Le Mans. And indeed: The Ducati star was right. Although Jorge Martin initially looked like the sure winner for a long time in the main race at the Sachsenring, Bagnaia was able to celebrate in the end, while his opponent ended up in the gravel bed of turn one. But could the Italian have won even without Martin’s crash?
“It was a really tough race today. Jorge did a great job. It really wasn’t easy to close the gap to him,” said Bagnaia on Sunday afternoon and wondered: “Maybe I was behind Frankie [Morbidelli, Anm.] lost a little too much time.” Bagnaia had previously used the same tactics as in the sprint and saved his rear tyre in the starting phase while the Pramac duo attacked. It took until the 15th of 30 laps before he had regained second place from Morbidelli. At this point, however, he was already 1.2 seconds behind Martin.
Francesco Bagnaia sure: duel for MotoGP victory realistic
But Bagnaia now attacked, taking advantage of his tire advantage. Within three laps he was able to reduce the gap to just 0.8 seconds, before it stabilized again for a while. “I held back for the first six or seven laps,” Bagnaia recalls. “In the last 15 laps I pushed to close the gap again. I constantly made up a few tenths. When he crashed, I was already very close again. That’s a shame, because that could have been one of our best duels.”
Last year, the two had already fought each other until the last corner at the Sachsenring. A scenario that Bagnaia once again considered realistic. However, the reigning world champion did not want to make a final decision on who would have had the upper hand. However, he was at least convinced of the duel and was probably right. This is shown by a look at the development of the gap between Martin and Bagnaia in the final laps. On the 26th lap, the two were separated by 0.718 seconds, then by 0.587 seconds and by the end of the 28th lap, finally just 0.529 seconds. So it is not unrealistic that he could have reduced the gap to around 0.2 to 0.3 seconds by the end of the race and made a final attack in turns 12 or 13.
Francesco Bagnaia learns from 2022: Don’t repeat the same mistake!
“I saw that he went wide in turn one and even twice in turn 12. So in terms of pace, he was at the limit,” says Bagnaia, adding: “When I saw his mistakes, I knew I still had a chance.” Whether it would have been enough in the end will of course never be fully clarified. But what is certain is that the reigning world champion undoubtedly cut a more mature figure on Sunday. “Two years ago, I made the same mistake here,” Bagnaia recalls his fall in the 2022 German GP. “It was easy to make the same mistake again today. I didn’t understand the situation then, but I do today.”