Francesco Bagnaia “frustrated and angry” after Misano nightmare

Francesco Bagnaia began the Emilia Romagna race aiming to complete a perfect home double, after Saturday’s Sprint victory, and claim Ducati’s 100th grand prix win in his 100th grand prix start.

Victory would also have put Bagnaia back on top of the MotoGP world championship, ahead of Jorge Martin.

Beaten to the holeshot by Martin in the Sprint, the pole qualifier again lost out to the Pramac rider into Turn 1.

But this time the reigning double champion neatly re-passed Martin at Turn 2.

Everything looked to be going to plan for Pecco, but the warning signs appeared when the rear of his Ducati was seen squirming out of some corners.

And while only Martin was able to match Bagnaia’s pace all weekend, a queue of riders began forming behind the red machine.

Sensing Bagnaia’s weakness, Martin and Enea Bastianini burst past on lap 4 of 27, then pulled away.

The Italian clung to third and, after dropping into the 1m 32s in the early laps, suddenly rebounded to punch out a new lap record of 1m 30.877s at mid-distance.

“After the start, I said ‘OK, I can set my pace and I can control the gap’,” Bagnaia told MotoGP.com. “[But] I was losing a lot of time in all the accelerations. 

"I'd lost the rear in the warm-up lap in the last corner. Then I lost the rear in the first lap in corner 13. 

"The rear tyre started to work after 15 laps, something incredible!”

Once the medium rear, used by all but Marco Bezzecchi, was working, Bagnaia began reeling in the leaders.

But it ended in disaster with 7 laps to go when Bagnaia lost the front under braking for Turn 8, the home crowd gasping as he slid to a seventh DNF of the season.

For the second time in three rounds, Bagnaia pointed his finger at a tyre issue.

“I was already having some issues with the front locking since the start of the race so even when the rear tyre started to perform with 15 laps in and set the fastest lap of the race two times in a row, I still tried to be as careful as possible, especially under braking," he said.

“I started to push, but without using too much the front because I wasn't having a good feeling with the front,” Bagnaia explained. “I was braking 18 or 20 metres earlier than on my fastest lap and I lost the front without [lean] angle.

“It’s impossible to lose the front [like this] if you are in dry conditions. Everything was quite strange today, but it happened to us twice in the last three Grand Prix, so maybe it will happen to others in the next one.”

But Bagnaia, who had also blamed a front tyre issue in the Aragon Sprint, made his frustration clear.

“You work very hard. You are the fastest, the strongest. You know that your potential is to win the races. And then for something that is out of your control, you do results like this,” he said.

“It's easy to say that I could have [backed off and] finished third, but when you have your potential, when you have your pace and you are in control with your pace and then you crash… It's a shame.

“So I'm very frustrated and angry for that because it cannot happen in our championship. But it is what it is.”

After closing to within four points of Martin on Saturday, Bagnaia is now 24 points behind heading into the flyaway rounds, which start in Indonesia next weekend.

The good news for Bagnaia was that team-mate Bastianini was able to beat Martin after a hard last-lap pass, without which Martin’s lead would now be 29 points.

“We will work again like always. And we will try to win, but surely sometimes we need a bit of luck,” Bagnaia said.