Reigning MotoGP champion Pecco Bagnaia was left fuming after his crash in the Argentina Grand Prix at Termas de Rio Hondo – partly because it was a fall he didn’t understand.
Two laps after passing Alex Marquez for second place at the penultimate corner of the circuit, Bagnaia fell in the same place. This had come on lap 17 of 25 in the wet race, and though Bagnaia remounted, attrition was not high enough for him to even pick up a solitary point.
THE WORLD CHAMP HAS CRASHED OUT! 😱@PeccoBagnaia has THROWN AWAY 20 points! 💥#ArgentinaGP 🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/XDuSEOlrQl
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 2, 2023
“I’m very upset, sincerely,” he said.
“This kind of crash that I’m not understanding. Sometimes you crash and you don’t know why. They are the most difficult to understand, the most difficult to learn [from]. I did 16 laps, in 16 laps I did the same manoeuvre [at that corner], but in that lap I crashed.
“It’s also not a normal crash. Because normally when you lose the front, it’s because you braked too much or released the brakes too early.
“Today, I lost the front touching the gas. So, it’s something that is more difficult to understand. But that’s it, I did a mistake.”
Marquez, running behind him, had suggested that it looked like Bagnaia erred while pushing to make a break for it, but that was not Bagnaia’s impression.
He also “didn’t feel a big drop” in terms of tyre wear, front or rear, “because I was so conservative at the start”.
Having struggled in the wet at several occasions last year, he acknowledged he “was feeling great, without forcing [the bike], without doing crazy things”.
“Everything was under control. So, this is something that for that reason I don’t understand. But we know we were on the limit because the laptime was very competitive, maybe for that reason. But the only thing is, if I crash, it’s just because I did a mistake.”
His spectacular run of form that took him to the 2022 MotoGP title had removed many of the question marks about what had before been Bagnaia’s most worrying quality – a propensity to fall off unexpectedly while on course for a strong result.
But it likely still weighed on Bagnaia’s mind even as he sealed the title – which was suggested by him calling rival Fabio Quartararo the more complete rider in the aftermath – and it was clear that the Termas crash worried him as a potential recurrence.
“I was wondering that this year I was a better rider, more precise, without mistakes, doing better things – and the second race of the year, already crashed. So it’s something that makes me angry.”
