The Italian again lowers the record on the Sachsenring circuit and starts ahead of Fabio Quartararo, with Aleix Espargaró in fourth
MotoGP landed on the Sachsenring circuit in the middle of the week, a scenario over which the powerful shadow of Marc Márquez, the great absentee, hovered. In the place where only one driver could have won since 2013, with an offensive superiority, it was impossible not to analyze things with a thought of ‘yes, this has happened, although of course Márquez is not there.’
To erase this feeling, the current contenders on the grid have thought of nothing more than breaking the records of the Spanish champion, who held the track record since official training in 2019. The one who has taken the most wins, with the most poles, fastest lap on a motorcycle. On Friday, Pecco Bagnaia showed his intentions by completing two laps in the second free practice session, which was an improvement on what Márquez had put down. Luca Marini, also on a Ducati, contributed to this achievement.
Yesterday everything was taken a little further. In the third free practice, the first eight drove under that time of 2019, the first five for the first time in history under one minute and twenty seconds. Led again by Bagnaia, the same one who confessed after the first day that he had soaked up videos of Márquez at the Sachsenring in order to understand what makes Cervera different on the Saxon circuit. “I’m very happy with how the weekend has started,” he commented with pole position in his pocket and aware that this is indeed only the beginning in the absence of the defining factor, the race.
“From FP1 I started to feel really good with the bike and everything was already in place. I haven’t changed anything at the setting level. When everything fits you so well, it’s easier to focus on the tires and the race pace. Today both FP4 and Q2 were not easy as it was very hot and the wind hindered me, but I am very happy for pole as this was a circuit that withstood us last year,” analyzed Bagnaia, who signed three of the last. five poles, in an upward trend that is beginning to resemble that at the end of 2021, when he achieved them in five of the last six Grand Prix.
The Italian now has to translate this into good results in the race because despite the speed he shows, he sees from a great distance the leader, Fabio Quartararo, who manages to fight from you to you, surrounded as he is by so many Italian motorcycles (Ducati, in one day when seven of its eight prototypes entered Q2, the only absence being Enea Bastianini, the one who has won the most this year with the Borgo Panigale prototype, and Aprilia, those are two bikes there).
“We are already used to seeing so many Italian motorcycles in the first three rows,” acknowledged the Frenchman, second only 76 thousandths of Bagnaia, with the only non-Alpine prototype in the top nine. Quartararo holds the author’s pole at 66 points overall, with Aleix Espargaró as his closest pursuer, at 22.
“Fabio has improved a lot today and it won’t be easy, but it would be interesting to cut some points from him before the summer break and I’m going to try everything, but I repeat it won’t be easy,” Espargaró accepted, who as fourth will start after a day with some more complications than in the inaugural Die of Granollers slightly lowered the previously known goal to win: «I think in Barcelona I had it a little more affordable, here I am not far in terms of speed, but it will be necessary to understand because I am not very clear, no I just saw who has the better pace in the last ten laps. Because although the race distance in kilometers is always the same thirty laps here is very long because the rear tire on the left is very hot for a very long time with very high spin so those last eight or ten laps it won’t be a question of who will be the fastest to be. They are the ones who make me doubt.
These doubts will increase with the temperature rise expected for a very high demand race. The riders will endure the grueling test of the rattling circuit of the Sachsenring, which will meet another winner nine years after Marc Márquez’s ever-present first win.
Source: La Verdad
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