However, his early reign as the leader was short-lived as Marquez made a dive in turn 1, allowing Jorge Martin through, who proved to be a difficult opponent to pass, until Martin lost the front in turn six, allowing Bagnaia back into the lead.

“Yeah, absolutely! 60% of the race was decided on the start,” Bagnaia said about his incredible opening lap. “Because yesterday I tried the same overtake in corner six, but the outside was a bit wet [so I couldn’t pull off the move]. So I just tried to do it again today because it was dry and it went perfectly!”

“For sure, the most important thing has been the first lap, corner 6, the overtake on the outside was so important, and then I tried to push to follow the guys at the front, and Jorge committed a mistake, going too strong on the braking at corner 6.”

“When I saw Martín crash, I was braking very hard in corner six, and I was seeing that in this lap he was gaining a bit of time in the braking, and he lost the front, but it’s difficult to know why he crashed. Sometimes it can happen in the corner because the asphalt is a bit strange if you arrive with straight tires at a precise moment.”

“And then it was very important to not force too much on the braking today because the feeling with the front was not the ideal one. Maybe because of the cold temperatures, I don’t know, but it was moving a lot and the race was very long, but we managed it perfectly without taking too much risk and having a bit of margin for the last laps.”

The race did not stop there as Marquez started pushing at the midpoint of the race and started closing in on Bagnaia at a rapid pace, but once he got behind Bagnaia, he made a daring pass in turn nine but got wide, allowing Bagnaia to make the switchback maneuver, which resulted in contact and almost ended up with similar consequences to Portugal early in the season.

“But I enjoyed it a lot, the battle with Marc was strong. Every time you have to fight with Marc, you know that you have to be aggressive, and finally, it was very good, I enjoyed it a lot!”

“You know perfectly when you are fighting with Marc, you have to put your elbow out. It was a nice battle for me.”

“It was smart because when we touched, normally when you do this kind of contact, the one on the inside loses the direction and goes in the opposite way. He was smart to pick up a bit and I was smart to remain with the angle because if not I was doing more or less what happened yesterday. But everything went perfectly, and the second time he tried again I just tried to push back again and to open the gap for the last laps.”

Bagnaia reiterated the importance of taking the lead early in the race, as he feels that with the current generation of bikes, it is difficult to stay behind the rider at the front due to increasing tire pressure.

“When you have the possibility to be at the front, it is the most important thing because when you are leading, you don’t have dirty air and you don’t have high tire pressure, so I just tried to do the maximum.”

“I tried to overtake Marc in the last corner [early on] and today the last corner was very tricky because we saw in Moto2 that you were going a bit wide, and as soon as you were a bit wide, then you were crashing.”

“I just tried to push [after taking the lead in lap 1] but I committed mistakes in the last corner too. I was wide, and I lost two positions so as soon as I got behind Martin the tire pressure started to go up and it was very difficult to stop the bike and to do my line and as soon as he crashed I was doing better lap times. The feeling was better and it’s quite strange but when you arrive behind a rider you have to go in because if not you can’t do what you want to do even if you’re faster.”