Mandalika test, Bagnaia: “I’m not worried, I have great pace”

The timesheets after a day of testing will often give contrasting information, to be taken with a pinch of salt. And this is also true today, with Pecco Bagnaia lying 22nd but in a relaxed frame of mind, satisfied with the important work completed in the garage.

“I don’t see why I should be worried”, begins Pecco, “as everyone adopts their own strategy in testing. For example, we were the only ones who didn’t use the soft tyre today – we’d planned to use it at the rear in the final stages, but then it started to rain. My main goal was to understand which tyres best suit this track and considering the lap times, I was fast, though the fact that the race is so far away reduces the significance of this”.

How do you explain the crash?

“That was down to over confidence, at a time when the track was still too dirty. I’d already completed 30 laps with the same tyres, and Michelin had set a limit of 35, so we put in new tyres that were of course much better. As a result, I felt very confident, pushed too hard and lost the front. In these conditions, it’s hard not to make mistakes – you have to find the limit at new tracks, so I’ve done that at least”.

Bagnaia: "The second sector’s a lot of fun"

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How was the track? Had you talked about it with any SBK riders? Rinaldi for example?

“I didn’t speak with Rinaldi, although I remember him talking about a lot of grip, which there is on the ideal trajectory. The track is like a combination of the Thai and Argentinian circuits, I really like the first sector, T2 in particular, as it’s very fast”.

Would it be possible to race right now? Or too dangerous considering the conditions?                                   

“You’d have to stay perfectly on the right lines, because it’s a disaster as soon as you change trajectory. Today I was thinking that if you had to do a long lap, you’d definitely crash, you wouldn’t be able to stay upright. I hope they think about these things before the race weekend, so that the situation improves, but I think it will be difficult considering that there’s so much work going on around the track, with trucks throwing up so much dirt. These test days have definitely been useful anyway and as for the race weekend, the situation will probably be a bit like Qatar, with an ideal line and a lot of dirt outside of that line”.

Translated by Heather Watson

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