Francesco Bagnaia ed il Ducati Lenovo Team have dominated the second day of action for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix by taking pole position (with new outright lap record) and by winning the 13-lap sprint race at the Misano World Circuit ‘Marco Simoncelli’. Enea Bastianini also put together an excellent performance as, from the front row of the grid, he managed to finish third.
Following a not-ideal start, Bagnaia entered turn one in third place, but quickly moved up to second position by overtaking Binder on the straight leading to the ‘Quercia’ corner. From there on, Pecco displayed an incredible place, which allowed him to bridge the 0.7secs gap to the then-leader Martín. With six laps left, the reigning world champion took advantage of a small mistake by his rival at turn 12 and passed him at the ‘Carro’ corner. Bagnaia then well defended his small lead up to the chequered flag.
Starting from third place on the grid, Bagnaia recovered the lost position at the ‘Quercia’ corner by diving on the inside of Binder on the opening lap. With a consistently quick pace, Enea tried to close the gap to the frontrunners but was unable to enter the battle for the race win. The Ducati rider #23 still managed to cross the finish line a lonely third, with a considerable margin over the following riders.
The fourteenth, full race of the season, the last one before the long extra-European trip, will get underway tomorrow at 13:00 local time (GMT +2) and will be contested over a 27-lap distance.
Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 1st
“I did everything to make sure my riding was as close to 100% as possible and luckily I managed to do so. Today’s race pace was crazy. Just two weeks ago, to be lapping in the 31.2/3 was already an incredible achievement, while today we were consistently quicker than that. Once again, I didn’t get the best of starts and I found myself also behind Brad (Binder). Once I moved up to second, I found myself with a 0.7secs gap, and it was hard to get the better of Jorge (Martín); without his mistake, it would have been a lot harder to overtake him. I was very quick in that sector, and I would have tried to pass him there anyway. I’m happy because we narrowed the gap down to the lead a bit more, but the most important race awaits us tomorrow and it’ll be key to get a good start and be in the lead from the get-go. I’d like to thank the team for the amazing work done and the fans for being here with us.”
Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 3rd
“It was a complicated race, although less than expected. I stayed fairly close to the frontrunners, who until today had shown a pace that was almost unrivalled. The most difficult part for me is in the first three-four laps, but I was still confident of being able to close the gap. Unfortunately, both of them were pushing really hard. We surely need to make some improvements ahead of tomorrow because I noticed we were not at our best in some parts of the track, so I think we can do something better. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow: it’s likely going to be a different race because we’ll probably be forced to use the medium rear tyre, but we’ll do our best.”
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