New absolute record: Francesco Bagnaia takes pole in 1’44″855, 0″078 faster than Marc Marquez and 0″152 than Alex Marquez. Other Italians: Marco Bezzecchi sixth, Luca Marini 11th, Enea Bastianini 12th, Franco Morbidelli 14th, Michele Pirro 17th, Lorenzo Savadori 22nd
June 10, 2023
Scarperia – Nervousmore than angry with Marc Marquez, apparently having trouble stopping his Ducati. But one of the great qualities of Francis Bagnaia is that of know how to react.
Hard to say how he gets out of certain situations: the new track record, 1’44”855 seals another performance of the highest level. After the first attempt, Bagnaia was only 11th. He brought forward the return to the track with the second tire, but when he started to push and arrived at San Donato, at the first corner, at 360 km/h, he found Marc Marquez on the trajectory.
From TV images, it doesn’t seem like Marquez is bothering Bagnaiabut has a reaction furious: begins to gesticulate, repeatedly moves his left arm, annoyed in a more than evident way. She joins him, continues to send him to that country, then starts pushing again: Bagnaia has to set the time, while Marquez is already third in the standings. The tires have a lap more than necessary on the shoulders, but Pecco finds his concentration inside the helmet, transforms the anger into positive energy and he begins to push very hard, with Marquez obviously attached to the cordon. T1: Bagnaia red helmetMarquez red helmet. T2: Bagnaia red helmetMarquez even redder helmet; T3: Bagnaia red helmetMarquez even more rosso.
Ma al T4Pecco ago a masterpiece, travels the Bucine like no other in the world. Finish line: Bagnaia 1’44″855, Marquez 1’44″937, only 0″078 between the two.
“I do not have anything to say, the images speak for themselves, the judges will decide, it’s not my job” says Bagnaia to comment on the episode. In Ducati they are convinced that Marc did it on purpose to stay on the trajectory and ask for an intervention from the Stewards Panel.
“There was a safe distanceit is useless to comment” short cut Marquez. For what can be seen from the images, I repeat, this time Marc doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong.
Then, on the fact that Bagnaia still attacked, I too add the same phrase as the riders: “The images speak for themselves, there’s no point in commenting”. To complete the front row, Alex Marquez, who came through from Q1: Alex has a great pace for the race. The favorite seems to be Bagnaia, but when you have Marquez close you can never be calm, you have to earn success.
Bezzecchi in the second row
Excellent fourth time by Jack Miller, who also passed from Q1, with Jorge Martin fifth and Marco Bezzecchi sixth. Of the three, Marco seems to be the one best placed over the distance, but Miller’s performance confirms the growth of the KTM, while we know how explosive Martin can be in the Sprint.
Aprilia, still regrets
In seventh place Aleix Espargaro, who yesterday then explained the dynamics of Thursday’s bicycle crash. “I got distracted with my cell phoneI apologized to the team, you can’t crash like this on the Thursday before the Italian GP” he said honestly.
When he gets off the bike he limps conspicuouslyit is clear that the heel pain conditions him and the seventh place obtained is below the possibilities of the RS-GP. But Maverick Vinales does even worse, only 13th: you need to change pace to get to certain results.
Yamaha, as always
The P1s had deludedbut the Yamaha reality is this: Franco Morbidelli 14th, Fabio Quartararo 15th. Their GP, in fact, it’s already over here. Fabio is no longer able to patch it up, to make a difference: it’s really bad to see two riders so strong, struggling so much.
MotoGP Q2 standings