Bagnaia says his contact with Marquez in Jerez MotoGP battle “was smart”


Bagnaia and Marquez locked horns with one another within the latter phases of Sunday’s 25-lap grand prix at Jerez after early chief Jorge Martin crashed out.

Marquez chopped down a 1.2-second benefit Bagnaia held on lap 14 to get inside putting vary on the twenty first tour.

As Marquez threw his Gresini Ducati up the within of Bagnaia, he ran barely extensive and on the cutback into Flip 10 the pair rubbed in opposition to one another.

Bagnaia got here out on high and defended one other overtake try on lap 22 to carry on for the victory.

Regardless of the pair colliding on the Portuguese GP final month, Bagnaia says he loved his battle with Marquez and felt the contact they made was executed “in a sensible manner”.

“I loved the battle loads,” he advised motogp.com’s After the Flag. “For positive, whenever you battle Marc you must put your elbows up as a result of the battle is intense.

“Actually, it was the one place I used to be in a position to defend as a result of I knew completely that he was very robust in corners seven and eight and I used to be listening to each lap that he was closing the hole.

“However I used to be actually robust within the entrance of nook 9. So, I used to be saying to myself ‘OK, I will not take a danger in nook eight however I’ll break so arduous in nook 9 to have somewhat benefit’.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Group

Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“And I knew that if I used to be braking this difficult, he was for positive going to go a bit extensive. And I simply used this factor to shut the road and be in entrance once more.

“If you battle like this, you place it on the listing you can have this contact. I believed it was fairly clean and good, as a result of I used to be on the within.

“He simply tried to go round me, however as quickly as we arrived to the apex, we touched.

“He picked up [the bike] a bit; I simply leant extra as a result of if I picked up too, I used to be occurring the opposite aspect. So, it was contact however in a sensible manner.”

Previous to Martin’s crash, Bagnaia was set to fall 47 factors behind his Pramac rival however is now simply 17 adrift.

And through his battle with Marquez, he admits he had no ideas of settling for second in an effort to minimise a factors loss.

“It is too quickly to begin desirous about it [the title], and as quickly as Jorge crashed I felt higher with the bike and I began to push and I dropped the lap instances a bit,” he added.

“So, no, I by no means thought of giving up and taking second place. I am not a man who in this sort of second likes to surrender.”

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