Francesco Bagnaia, Jorge Martin and Johann Zarco sum up their American Grand Prix and know there is still work to be done in the upcoming MotoGP races
While Enea Bastianini on the Gresini Team’s 2021 Ducati took his second win of the season at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin during the MotoGP weekend, his Ducati-branded colleagues found the 2022 version of the Desmosedici more difficult.
Jack Miller, who ultimately “only” finished third after leading for a long time, had shed light on his race directly on Sunday and put it in context with Bastianini’s once again strong performance. Miller’s Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia finished fifth. The Italian struggled even more than the Australian.
“Enea was unbeatable. His pace was so much better than everyone else’s,” Bagnaia praised Bastianini’s winning ride, but also noted, “But we mustn’t forget that Marc [Marquez] would certainly have been up there too if he hadn’t had the problem at the start. The bottom line is that I think Enea was the only one who could have fought with Marc. “
Bagnaia doesn’t want to reveal why it wasn’t enough for him to make it to the podium. He points out that they still need time to understand the GP22 sufficiently. In order to achieve this, more intensive set-up work is needed in the training sessions.
“Jack showed a strong race. He was consistently fast from the start. I, on the other hand, had a few difficulties. I think we just need more weekends like this one where we can work consistently and understand things,” says Bagnaia, but is convinced “that step by step we will get stronger again.”
If it was still enough for Bagnaia to finish in the top five at the USA weekend, pole setter Jorge Martin on the 2022 Ducati of the Pramac team only finished in P8. “At the beginning I tried to save the tyres. I was very strong in the first and fourth sectors. But on the straights I regularly lost time. In the end, my tyres were completely gone. We’ll have to take a look at that,” said the Spaniard, relatively curtly.
Johann Zarco, who finished ninth directly behind team-mate Martin, sounds very similar: “It was a very difficult race. I had a good start and a really good early phase. I had a pretty good feeling, but I couldn’t keep the pace for the podium. I got problems with the rear tyre. And once you have a bit more trouble than the others, you get attacked.”
“I made a few mistakes in an effort to keep up, which cost me extra time,” Zarco reported, revealing, “The final phase was really complicated because the bike was moving a lot. I was also physically at the limit. That was definitely the most exhausting race of the year. Considering all the circumstances, I’m happy to have finished ninth. “
“I learned a lot in this race and gathered a lot of information that we now have to evaluate in the team. It’s obvious that we are currently lacking a bit to be able to maintain the necessary pace in the race for a longer period of time,” said Zarco.