MotoGP Austin, Bagnaia dejected: "Hard to move forward like this"

There’s disappointment on Pecco Bagnaia’s face after the Austin race, and it’s easy to understand why. The DNF at COTA has done nothing for the Italian’s morale, the rider again seeing a potentially strong result vanish in the blink of an eye, due to a crash.

“It’s hard to accept all this”, starts Pecco, “just as it is to crash for no reason for the second weekend in a row. I accept responsibility, as I’m the rider and if I crash it means I’ve made a mistake, but it would be nice to understand what the mistake was. That’s what I’ll be asking my team – I don’t know how it’s possible to make 60 or 80 laps in the same way only to crash on race day, without doing anything different. I’d like to know.”

Bagnaia dealing with a "strange situation"

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The Ducati rider speaks from the heart and seeks answers as well as peace of mind, just as he did during the tough times last season.

“In the last race I crashed in the wet, where it’s easier to exceed the limit, so perhaps that was OK. But I can’t explain what happened today, and I won’t be able to. I’m crashing in strange situations, which seems odd to me. I hope to understand, otherwise it will be very difficult to move forward. I’m close in the championship, but if I think that I’ve thrown away 45 points in two races, it’s not ideal.”

Bagnaia concludes by offering his thoughts as to the tyres and track, but he’s not looking for excuses.

“The track is worse than last year, but we’ve all gone faster anyway. We all went with the hard tyre today, but perhaps it was too cold to use it. Those who used it and finished the race regardless did well.”