MotoGP championship favourite Pecco Bagnaia admitted he’d mismanaged his two-crash Saturday at the Malaysian Grand Prix due to being “nervous and angry”.
Bagnaia came up on a slow Franco Morbidelli during what was to be his fastest lap in third practice as he bid to secure a spot directly in Q2 and then crashed at Turn 8 on the following lap. Even a 0.001s improvement would have seen him through as Morbidelli in 10th had recorded an identical time but went to Q2 on the strength of a better second-fastest lap.
And while Bagnaia then made light work of Q1, he fell while on a potential pole lap, crashing at Turn 4 moments after recording the best first sector of the session.
DOWN AGAIN! 💥
On course for the first 1:57, @PeccoBagnaia has dropped it! 🤯@FabioQ20 has a HUGE chance to capitalise! 🚨#MalaysianGP 🇲🇾 pic.twitter.com/UqbG8vo8Q7
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) October 22, 2022
“Today what I can say is the only good thing was FP4 and Q1 obviously, but FP4 because I was very fast with very used tyres,” Bagnaia summed up after qualifying ninth.
“Then I just did everything to try to ruin the day.
“This morning I was too upset, too nervous with what happened with Franco and Fabio [Quartararo, running right ahead of Morbidelli in that moment], I was a bit angry, but after an hour I just said ‘it’s something that can happen to everybody’.
“I’m human and I started feeling a bit of pressure. But I think it’s normal.
“And also for the qualifying, I just… I wasn’t smart enough to understand my pace was good enough to be in the front row without forcing too much.
“[It] was the biggest mistake.”
Morbidelli, who was handed a double long-lap penalty for impeding Bagnaia, offered an apology that was accepted, with Bagnaia having cooled off and acknowledged his initial anger “was too much”.
He also admitted that, with a real chance of sealing his first MotoGP crown this weekend, he was feeling the pressure, and that he simply needn’t have pushed as hard either in FP3 or Q2.
“Sincerely, it’s true that my feeling on the bike is incredible,” Morbidelli said. “I can force a lot the braking, I can use a lot the corner speed. The grip, with 21 laps of the rear tyre, was quite good. I had to manage a lot but doing 2m00.2[97s] with 21 laps on the tyres is very good. Also from the bike it was very good.
“[In FP3] I just crashed on the bumps that are on [the exit of] corner 7, we see a lot of riders crashing there. And in that moment I just said I will try to do this corner 7 faster again, and I crashed. And this is something that happened because I was a bit angry, nervous [after the Morbidelli encounter].
“And the same this afternoon – I was pushing too much in a moment that was just enough to understand that my pace was good enough to be in the top three without forcing. On those things, it’s something I have to learn. Because for sure starting from P3, P2 compared to starting P9 is a different story.
“But this track is not like Japan where starting P12 it became more difficult. I think this track has more possibility to overtake and for sure our engine will help on that.”
Sympathy for ‘El Diablo’
Bagnaia will have four Ducatis ahead of him on the grid on Sunday, and the only of his three remaining title rivals to have qualified ahead is Gresini’s Enea Bastianini, who would need to recover a 42-point deficit with 50 up for grabs.
Of the possibility of being helped by fellow Ducati riders, Bagnaia said that he believed “if they have the possibility, [they] will try to win, like always” but acknowledged “maybe tomorrow will be the day to have some team orders”.
But those may not be necessary. Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, who needs to beat Bagnaia to stay in the title hunt going into Valencia, also crashed in Q2 and qualified one place behind, while closest rival Fabio Quartararo was last in the second segment, nursing a fractured middle finger on his left hand but also traditionally pessimistic about his Yamaha M1’s ability to make any overtakes.
Bagnaia said he was feeling sympathy for Quartararo, who at one point looked like a shoo-in for the 2022 crown.
Asked whether his title rivals’ bad days were a reprieve, Bagnaia said: “For sure, yes. Even worse than mine.
“Because Fabio, with the crash in FP4, broke a finger… and I want just to say that I’m sorry for him, because I think that in this moment the bad luck he’s having is too much.
“He doesn’t deserve it, I think.
“And thinking on Aleix I think sincerely he’s struggling a lot from the start of the weekend. Today also when he was behind [poleman] Jorge Martin, he had a crash and maybe in that lap he was overtaking me [otherwise] but we didn’t have, all three, a really good day.”
