Francesco Bagnaia claims it is “impossible to understand” how his disastrous crash in the German MotoGP happened.
The spill arguably accounted for the only competition which championship leader Fabio Quartararo might have had that afternoon, and the Monster Energy Yamaha rider romped to a second consecutive victory.
Unlike most who had fallen at Turn 1 during the weekend, Bagnaia was already a long way around the corner, before the rear of his Desmosedici came round rather than the front folding.
“I’m trying to replay in my mind what happened, and I cannot explain my crash,” he said.
“For sure, if I crashed, it’s because I did a mistake. But in this situation, it’s very difficult to understand why.
Secure your spot today.
“Looking at the data, it’s impossible to understand. I was angry like this, because I can’t explain it.
“I’m very angry, because when you crash and you know why, it’s your mistake, normally I’m very self-critical.
“But today, the reason why I crashed is something I can’t explain. So, it’s more difficult to understand, it’s more difficult to accept.
“I did more than 70 laps over the weekend and in none of those did I feel close to anything like this.
“It never happened in my life to crash like this; only at [Valentino Rossi’s] Ranch, but at the Ranch I’m on the dirt track.
“My lean angle was the same, my speed was the same, I was more turned to exit, so it’s very difficult to understand why I crashed.
“Maybe all the bikes at this moment are living in a narrow margin and if you go out of it, you crash.”
Bagnaia has now slipped to sixth in the championship and is 91 points behind Quartararo with half of the 20 races this season now in the books.
Making it an even more bitter pill to swallow, he had qualified on pole position in Germany, after breaking the outright lap record multiple times in practice.
‘Pecco’ led the field down to the first corner of the race but Quartararo jammed his YZR-M1 down the inside, and was aggressive again in criss-crossing #63 on exit when Bagnaia thought he had reclaimed the spot there on Lap 2.
Had he been able to stay upright, he felt he could have forced ‘El Diablo’ into trouble by making the Frenchman use up his rear tyre.
“Everything was perfect,” remarked Bagnaia.
“I started the race and I was controlling everything. I had two plans.
“The first one was to start in front and push. And the second was, if Fabio was in front in the first three laps, like it was, I was planning to be more calm, be more smart, let Fabio go 1.5 to two seconds and then in the second part of the race to close this gap and try to overtake.
“Because I was with the hard [rear Michelin tyre] and he was with the medium. And I think that if I was there, for sure the pace of the race was from 1:21.5s to 1:21.9s, so it would be more difficult for a medium tyre to remain constant like this.
“For sure now it’s just words, but I think our potential was that.
“Everything was going to plan, everything was working well, my braking was strong, my corner speed was strong, everything was strong. So, it’s even more difficult to accept for that reason.
“The only positive thing is that again we were at the top, we were the fastest, and also looking at the pace, our potential was high.
“But nothing…”
Round 11, the Dutch TT, takes place this weekend at Assen (June 24-26).
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