A battered and bruised Francesco Bagnaia remains at a loss to understand his frightening MotoGP crash in the Catalan Grand Prix last weekend in Barcelona.
The Lenovo Ducati rider was leading the race through the first chicane on the opening lap when his rear tyre let go and he was high-sided off the Desmosedici, slamming into the tarmac.
Bagnaia was a sitting duck as the tightly bunched pack tried to swerve around him, but KTM’s Brad Binder was unable to avoid running over his legs.
The race was red-flagged and Bagnaia was taken to hospital, but the reigning world champion escaped without any broken bones and had been passed fit to compete in his home round of the championship at Misano in San Marino this weekend.
His team-mate, Enea Bastianini, has been ruled out after sustaining hand and ankle fractures when he triggered a multi-rider pile-up at the first corner.
Bagnaia, 20th in Friday’s opening practice, said his main injury concern is an injury to his right knee.
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“First of all, I am pleased and lucky to be here. I have to say thanks to the hard work that Alpinestars are doing in terms of safety, the evolution; the work they are doing is for sure the top in the world,” said Bagnaia.
“I’m very happy, it’s my home Grand Prix and it’s very important to be here. We worked a lot and it was not easy because Monday was not an easy day.
“We worked very hard and I’m very proud of the work we did; it’s incredible what we did from Monday until now.
“I will continue all weekend to do therapy and we will improve every day. Let’s see. I tried to jump on the bike before and I feel OK.”
On his physical condition, Bagnaia added: “The biggest one is where the Brad Binder impact [occurred], which is the right knee. I have a big haematoma in the knee and it goes down to the foot.
“It will be a problem to move the leg, but let’s see.”
The championship leader, who holds a 50-point advantage over Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin going into round 12, said his crash was solely due to a tyre issue.
“From the bike I was just feeling from the warm-up lap that my rear grip was zero,” Bagnaia said.
“I almost crashed twice, three times in the warm-up lap at corner three, corner nine and corner 12 without pushing because it was the warm-up lap.
“Then in the first corner I was already losing the rear tyre. If you check the image, Jorge [Martin] had to brake a lot, this was why – I had this gap in the second corner.
“As soon as I leaned the bike and opened the gas, I completely lost the rear. We checked the data, analysed everything and in terms of the electronic and side, and riding style, we didn’t do any mistakes.
“We are waiting for Michelin to analyse everything… but it was quite heavy, quite a strange crash, so it’s important to understand everything.”
Despite still recovering from the effects of the crash, Bagnaia is intent on challenging for victory at Misano in front of his home fans.
“We will try for sure. It’s one of my favourite race weekends, my home Grand Prix,” he said.
“The power that the fans can give to us in this Grand Prix is incredible. I train a lot here so it is a track that I know perfectly, so let’s see.”
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