Pecco Bagnaia sounds the alarm: "I have a huge problem"

The Ducati rider is not thrilled with his Friday practice in Hungary: there’s an unexpected obstacle that isn’t allowing him to be as competitive as he’d like.

Francesco Bagnaia will have to face Q1 in Qualifying on Saturday morning at the Balaton Park Circuit. In the hard-fought Practice he wasn’t able to break into the top 10 due to a mistake at the end of his time attack. It looked like he was about to hit the target, but at the second-to-last corner he had an issue that cost him precious tenths.

He didn’t do better than fourteenth and will have to push to secure one of the two available spots for Q2. Overall, he’ll need to work hard with the Ducati Lenovo team to sort things out, because he struggled quite a bit on Friday practice in Hungary. Rear grip is his biggest problem.

Interviewed by Sky Sport MotoGP, the three-time world champion had a chance to explain what didn’t work: "We didn’t make the top 10 because at the second-to-last corner, when I tipped the bike in, the rear stepped out. I lost about four tenths, enough to be in the top 10. I’m really struggling with rear grip; I didn’t expect this situation, because last year this wasn’t a track that wore the tire much and we didn’t think we’d have problems. Instead, this year’s constant—having little grip—has turned out to be a big issue."

Regardless of tire choice, Bagnaia found himself battling rear-end traction: "It happened both with the medium—on the left I couldn’t carry any corner speed at all—and in the time attack with the soft. I pushed hard, but I’m really missing the final phase of corner entry. When I try to load the bike a bit more on entry, the rear steps out on its own, off-throttle. That’s a huge limitation on such a tight track where you have to make the bike turn a lot. Hard to understand, because from the data only Marc seems to be in a situation similar to mine. The telemetry shows that on my best lap we were even up to the second-to-last corner. Meanwhile, Diggia manages to have a lot of grip, we need to understand why and work on it."

Naturally, Pecco intends to get through Q1 and into Q2 to give himself a chance to start from the front rows and have fewer problems securing a strong result: "We need to start up front and nail the start. I’m happy that since the change we made at Mugello, the practice starts here have been perfect. That helps, but we still need to sort things out, because in the race the further you go the more the rear tire heats up, and if I have this problem it becomes really tough."

Some sections of the Balaton Park Circuit have been resurfaced and that’s causing issues, especially at Turn 1: "They redid the asphalt," Bagnaia commented, "but for some reason you just can’t stay upright. They also did Turn 7, but that’s fairly okay. At Turn 1 you brake, tip in, and when you start to carry lean angle the front tucks, precisely because of the lack of grip. It could be a problem at the race start: you arrive, brake hard to get ahead, and find yourself with no traction. It’ll be tough: even looking at the data, you can really see a lot of front tire locking; we’ll need to sort that out too."

The Ducati Lenovo Team rider knows what his issues are and will try to make the most of Saturday morning’s MotoGP FP2 to improve. After the podium at Mugello he came to Hungary fairly pumped, but this Friday practice was complicated and forces him to work even harder to avoid a weekend of disappointment.