Francesco Bagnaia on Marc Marquez’s antics in French MotoGP practice: “A strategy I don’t share”
Factory Ducati rider Bagnaia gestured furiously after trying to initially shake of Repsol Honda rider Marquez, who was clearly following him to setꦿ up his ow🌟n fastest lap.
They both finished inside the to📖p 10 but the edginess of Friday afternoon - with Bagnaia glaring furiously at the Honda garage before he went out again - has set up a tense Saturday in Le Mans.
“Last year he wa﷽s doing the same thing 🙈in Malaysia,” Bagnaia told about Marquez.
😼“But then I crashed and he got into the front row by himself🐼.
“It's Marc ✃Marquez, we al🧸l know Marc Marquez's speed, so it's a strategy I don't share.
“I'm 😼really different, I want to be alꦯone in qualifying or when I do the time attack.
“He꧃ has his own strategy and he's taking it to another level in my opinion: when you close, he stays there.
“If you keep your feet on the gr🐟ound, he does the sam☂e thing.
“It's an even 🍨more evolved strategy in sticki🧸ng than before.”
Friday wꦗas a t🌺ricky day for the reigning MotoGP champion.
“The last run helped me a lot to be calm,🐻 because before I was quite worried,” h𝐆e said. “This morning everything was going very well, but then from the time attack onwards everything was difficult.
“I thought it was just because I hadn't prepared the rear tire enough and that it wasn't ready yet, but then in the afternoon I restarted with the same tyre and I couldn't do the ꦆthings I wanted, I was going long.
“I also lost a lot in acceleration, because there was a ♌lot of spin.
"As soon as we pꩵut on a new tyre, everything was perfect.
“I wasn't able to be as fast as I would have liked because I had lost feeling, but the ♌time attack run is the only one where I felt like great new on my bike in FP2.
“In the e🍨nd it was just a tyre that wasn't working as it should have, but I lost almo🍎st 50 minutes of the session.
“That's why we're pretty sure that tomorrow ♔will be better and I'm happy to be in 🅺the top 10.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sp🐬orts, to footb🌳all, to F1.
