Bagnaia still has “no answer” for costly Germany MotoGP crash

The Italian crashed out of last weekend’s Sachsenring race at the start of the fourth lap when the rear of his Ducati came round on him at Turn 1.

It marked his fourth DNF of the season and has left him 91 points adrift of championship leader Fabio Quartararo, who dominated for his third win of the campaign in Germany, ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix at Assen.

At the time Bagnaia was at a total loss to explain the crash, and said on Thursday at Assen that he still has no explanation for it.

“No, just because it’s impossible to understand from the data,” he replied when asked if he found the reason for the crash in Germany.

“But the only thing that I tried to… I tried to be more critical and thinking more about what happened.

“And the only thing that came out was that [being] more on the limit like this, it’s easier to crash.

“So, from the data you can’t see anything. So, this was the only thing that came out from that crash.

“After the Le Mans crash I was the first one to go to my box and say sorry to all my team, because it was my mistake.

“But after this crash, it’s so different that to understand why I crashed on Monday I spent the day trying to think on that, trying to understand why. But there’s no answer for it.”

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Dorna

Bagnaia brushed off suggestions that he was affected by the leftover Dunlop rubber from the prior Moto2 race, noting that he was “already used to” the low grip conditions that are typical at the Sachsenring.

“I felt great all the laps before,” Bagnaia added.

“For sure, it wasn’t the best grip ever, but more or less it’s always like this.

“So, I was already used to it. Probably next year at Sachsenring in Turn 1 I will go in a bit more calm.”