"I felt myself again out on track," claims Bagnaia after his dominant performance at the Japanese Grand Prix
Hot on the heels of tough and disappointing races in recent months, Francesco Bagnaia has admitted that he finally enjoyed riding at Motegi as he regained the feeling he has been looking for since the start of the season.
Satarting from pole position, Francesco Bagnaia had a great launch off the line and was able to keep the lead into the opening corner. However, his teammate Marc Marquez had a similar start as yesterday, and fell back to fourth, while KTM factory rider Pedro Acosta jumped into second place at the start.
In the opening stages of the race, Marquez did not look too comfortable on his Ducati Desmosedici, and had to sit behind Acosta for the first 10 laps before getting the move for second done on the 11th tour.
But by now, Bagnaia built up a gap of over three seconds from the chasing pack just as he did in the sprint. However, there was a scare for Bagnaia as smoke began to come out of the rear of his Ducati.
The issue became apparent midway through the race, and did not disappear until the chquered flag. However, luckily for Bagnaia, the Italian was able to maintain his speed despite the technical woes.
At the front, the gap between Bagnaia and Marquez dropped over the final laps, possibly due to the technical issues, but the Italian's machine held out to the chequered flag for his second grand prix victory of the season.
Having endured tough and disappointing races in recent months, Bagnaia has admitted that he finally enjoyed riding at Motegi as he regained the feeling he has been looking for since the start of the season.
“This has been the first weekend in which I felt myself again out on track, and we really put together and excellent performance. After what has been a challenging season so far, it was hard to imagine that we would have squared the circle, but better late than never!
"I went back to enjoying riding the bike since the Misano test and I had fun today. This is wonderful, but also a pity that it happened only now, but we can only look forward and try to continue this way until the end of the season.
"I never stopped believing in myself and the team. I’m very proud of it, especially on a day like today. Obviously I’d like to congratulate Marc for his incredible season and I hope we’ll able to give all Ducatisti some more excitement in this last leg of the season.”
