MotoGP / After Francesco Bagnaia’s victory at Misano / Fabio Quartararo: “I have a knife to my throat”

Bagnaia thus continues its formidable rise in the standings. The transalpine driver seemed almost out of the race for the title after his exit from the track in Germany in June. At mid-season, he was only sixth and was then 91 points behind Quartararo. Less than three months later, “Pecco” has already made up two-thirds of its delay. He is only 30 points behind the reigning world champion, unable to stop the momentum of his runner-up last season. “There I am with the knife to my throat, there’s nothing I can do about it“, noted, bitter, the Yamaha rider.

Quartararo indeed seems to have run out of solutions. His 5th place may seem disappointing, but the Frenchman limited the damage rather well after a tricky qualifying session which had relegated him to the third row of the starting grid. It had the merit of grabbing a few places, for lack of anything better. “I think we had a good race, we kept the pace we had during practice, but I couldn’t catch up with them (the leading drivers, editor’s note) or even try to overtake.he regretted. I was at the limit, more than that I found myself on the ground.”

Bagnaia does not think about the classification

“El Diablo” is aware that if he cannot win, he must imperatively avoid committing the irreparable. And hope that Bagnaia makes a mistake. But the Italian is warned after his misadventures at the start of the season in Qatar, Le Mans and Germany. “Thirty points is still a lot, I don’t want to focus on thathe insisted after his victory at Misano. I just want to continue the work we’re doing on the second half of the season and be smart. I’ll start thinking about the championship when I’m 5 or 10 points away. I’ve already made too many mistakes thinking about the ranking.”

Cautious, the 25-year-old transalpine driver, however, has confidence in good shape when approaching the last six races of the season. Starting with the Aragon Grand Prix in two weeks, a race that Quartararo is already imagining.”hard“. Bagnaia, winner of ten of the twenty races he has contested since his arrival in the premier class last year, won at Motorland last season while his French rival struggled to finish in 8th place. The Italian will thus have a great opportunity to further reduce his deficit.

Quartararo does not sink into pessimism, however. Far from Europe, he will subsequently find slightly more favorable paths to try to retain the lead in the world championship. “Japan, Thailand, Australia, these are circuits that I really appreciate… We will try to get good results there“, advanced the Niçois. “El Diablo” knows that the fight to retain his title will probably be tight until the end. He is now on a thread. But he will cling to it with all his might.