Francesco Bagnaia said he could not overstate the importance of his timely victory in the Indonesia Grand Prix as the Ducati Team rider reclaimed the lead in the MotoGP title race.
Bagnaia came into the 15th round of the championship at the Mandalika International Street Circuit holding a fragile advantage of three points over Jorge Martin.
The Italian endured a disastrous qualifying and missed out on a spot in Qualifying 2, leaving him in 13th place on the fifth row of the grid.
To compound his woes, Martin won the Sprint race to secure his sixth victory in seven races on the Pramac Ducati as the title ride continued to turn in his favour.
Going into Sunday’s main Grand Prix, Martin led Bagnaia by seven points in the standings and was leading the race comfortably when he crashed out at Turn 11 on Lap 13 of 27.
Bagnaia didn’t need a second invitation to capitalise on his rival’s error and went on to win the race, bagging a crucial 25 points for his first victory since the Austrian GP in August.
The Italian now leads Martin by 18 points ahead of next weekend’s 16th round at Phillip Island in Australia with the title pendulum suddenly swinging back in his favour.
“It’s incredible, I’m so happy because this win is so important,” Bagnaia said.
“I was struggling this weekend but my team has done such an incredible job and they gave me the maximum.
“This morning in the warm-up I was already very happy with what we did and in the race, finally we won again.
“It was a long time without a win after the crash in Barcelona, so I’m very happy and proud of all my team and all my crew at home also.”
Bagnaia said he was aware that Martin was pulling away at the front but was content at that point to concentrate on preserving his tyres for the latter stages of the race.
“I was controlling because I could see that Martin was pushing, and I said ‘OK, he’s pushing a lot but let’s see’,” Bagnaia explained.
“It was a very long race so I was taking care of the tyres and it was the correct thing to do because when I saw there was 10 laps to go, I just tried to push again to put me in the front. I had another pace and I was controlling a lot.
“Winning here today and starting from P13 is unbelievable.”
It has been a challenging period for Bagnaia, who saw his 66-point lead wiped out by Martin after being outscored by the Spaniard in the previous eight races.
However, the 2022 world champion has been able to keep his emotions in check in the face of mounting pressure.
“To manage it is because we really want this championship,” he said. “We are pushing a lot and emotion is part of the job, and you have to work with it if you’re [up] against it sometimes.
“Without the emotions, you’re not getting the same incredible adrenaline. I love this sport; I love these emotions and I want to use this weekend as an example for the future.
“I think we deserved a race like this.”
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