Francesco Bagnaia produced a solid recovery in the Indonesian Grand Prix to keep the pressure on MotoGP world title rival Jorge Martin, despite having no answer to the Spaniard’s dominance.
The two-time defending champion whittled Martin’s erstwhile 24 point advantage down to 21 points after consolidating his win in Saturday’s sprint race with a run to third in the full-length encounter.
After struggling initially to get his tyres up to working temperature after a bad start, Bagnaia ran as low as seventh during the early stages and would spend a large portion of his race behind Franco Morbidelli, Enea Bastianini and Marco Bezzecchi’s that were fighting for third.
However, after rising to fourth in the closing stages when Bastianini crashed out with seven laps to go and Bezzecchi out-braked himself at Turn 10 moments later, Bagnaia picked off Morbidelli to seal his 11th grand prix podium of the season.
As such, despite an emphatic lights-to-flag victory for main rival Martin, it was Bagnaia who still came away from the Lombok venue having scored more points across the weekend in total.
“I tried to do the same start as yesterday [the sprint race] but the clutch had a different reaction, so I got a wheelie and it started to spin,” Bagnaia said.
“I didn’t lose many positions but after the start I was a bit too careful in the first laps so I started to lose positions and I struggled to get them back.
“My pace was very strong but it wasn’t enough to overtake riders in front of me easily because I need around 10 laps to overtake Bez. I was struggling with traction. It was difficult, but I’m happy because after yesterday we still gained good points.”
Bastianini pushing for second led to crash
Bastianini was left to rue the missed opportunity of a podium after crashing while in pursuit of Pedro Acosta in second place during the closing stages of the grand prix.
Having moved within 1.5s of the Tech3 KTM rider with seven laps remaining, Bastianini low-sided off into the gravel at Turn 1.
Picking up his a first Sunday race DNF of the season, Bastianini admitted pushing to capture second place cost him, following his own poor start.
“My objective was to win but Jorge was already quick from the start and I struggled a lot at the start with the rear tyre,” he said. “I tried my best to not lose any time but in the end we lost a lot of time.
“I don’t know about winning the race, probably I think it was possible to get second position.
“For me with Pedro, it was hard because he was faster but maybe in the last two or three laps my pace was very close to him.
“I tried to attack him, to fight but I arrived a bit faster than the lap before. I was pushing very hard, trying to close the gap to Pedro, but I arrived over the limit.”
