The Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) expressed this Saturday “very happy” for having won the first sprint race in the history of the MotoGP World Championship, in which the objective was to finish in the top three.
“The goal was to get to the points, but I managed to maintain a good ‘performance’ and finish first, which for me is a great happiness,” said the reigning world champion.
At a press conference, the rider assumed that he was “very excited” about the sprint race, the first in MotoGP history, “because it is a short 12-lap race, which makes it very competitive.”
“It was a very fast race, I was good and fortunately everything went well. I am very happy for the victory and for the team for the work they have been doing, ”he said.
Asked about the objective of the race on Sunday, Bagnaia assumed that “it’s about trying to keep the pace of the race in the sprint and get the best possible result.”
Bagnaia’s objective for Sunday’s race extends to the Spaniards Jorge Martín (Ducati) and Marc Márquez (Honda), second and third, respectively.
Jorge Martín assumed that he maintains “the hope of being able to maintain the accelerated pace of the sprint race, which allowed him to climb to second place on the podium”.
“Today I was hoping to finish in the top 3 and I hope to have a good race on Sunday and finish on the podium”, he highlighted.
His compatriot Marc Márquez, for his part, attributed “today’s good performance to teamwork, after the hard work done in recent days.”
“The team has done a fantastic job which resulted in third place today,” he said.
Márquez added that the expectations for Sunday “go through finding the best set-up that will allow a good performance and achieve a classification among the top five”.
The Portuguese Miguel Oliveira, who debuted with Aprilia, finished seventh in the opening race of the MotoGP World Championship, held at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, in Portimão.
The Portuguese rider, who was third in the last lap, made a mistake and crossed the finish line 2.940 seconds behind the winner, with Spaniard Jorge Martin (Ducati) second, 0.307, and former world champion Marc Márquez (Honda) third. at 1,517.
On Sunday, at 2:00 p.m., the main race will take place, for which Miguel Oliveira will start from fourth position on the grid.
It is the first time in its history that the opening race of the MotoGP World Speed Championship starts in Europe.
Source: TSF
