RiderTua.com – After crashing in the Jerez sprint, Pecco Bagnaia performed impressively in Sunday’s main race. Starting from 7th position on the grid, the Ducati Lenovo rider immediately shot to the front in the first lap, there was even a rocket overtaking maneuver directly between two riders (Martin-Marquez). “It’s important for me to overtake the riders as quickly as possible,” said the Italian rider explaining his racing tactics. But not long after, Pecco was overtaken by Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati).
Martin made a mistake on lap 10 which caused him to fall and gave Bagnaia the lead. At that time, Pecco had done maximum late braking, but Jorge was even slower. Then Pecco saw his bike shake a little and he crashed. But still, he has strong speed, said Domizia Castagnini’s fiancé rider.
Pecco Bagnaia Makes a Smart Maneuver
In the final third of the race, Francesco Bagnaia had to defend himself from Marc Marquez’s repeated attacks. When Baby Alien tried to overtake, the two of them collided on lap 21 but Pecco was able to survive and remain ahead in the clash.
Regarding this incident, Pecco explained in more detail. The 27 year old rider revealed that when he fought against Marc, he had to extend his elbows because the fight was always intense. The VR46 Riders Academy student knew Marc was very strong in turns 7 and 8. He performed well again when he entered turn 9. That’s why he didn’t want to take risks at turn 8, but braked very hard at turn 9 to gain the advantage.
Pecco took advantage of the situation when Marc went slightly wide to cross the racing line and regain the lead. According to him, physical contact is normal in such a fierce fight. It was a maneuver that Pecco thought was ‘safe’ because he was on the inside and Marc was on the outside, concluded teammate Enea Bastianini.
The MotoGP World Champion for 2 years in a row also successfully fended off all the follow-up attacks launched by Marquez and crossed the finish line as winner after 25 laps, 0.372 seconds ahead of the Gresini rider. For Pecco Bagnaia, this was his second win of the season and his third Jerez win in a row (after 2022 and 2023). This victory pushed the rider from Turin up to second place with 75 points or only 17 points behind leader Jorge Martin.
