Ninth-place finish for Francesco Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team in the Grand Prix of Thailand. Marc Márquez forced to retire while battling for the podium
The Ducati Lenovo Team completed the opening Grand Prix of the season at the Chang International Circuit. Francesco Bagnaia was ninth at the flag. Meanwhile, Marc Márquez had to retire from the encounter with six laps remaining.
Bagnaia made up four positions in the first two laps. Then he moved up to seventh place in the closing stages and finally finished ninth. Following a good start from the front row of the grid, Márquez battled for the podium until lap twenty-one. At that point, an impact with a kerb led to the deformation of the rear rim. This in turn caused the tyre to lose pressure.
As the Grand Prix of Thailand draws to a close, Marc Márquez is eighth in the championship standings with nine points. Francesco Bagnaia is tenth, one point behind his teammate. The Ducati Lenovo Team is fifth in the teams’ standings (17 points), while Ducati is third in the constructors’ championship (19 points).
The Ducati Lenovo Team will be back in action on March 20th for the first day of action of the Estrella Galicia 0,0 Grand Prix of Brazil. This will take place at the Autódromo Internacional de Goiânia – Ayrton Senna.
Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 9th
“It was a tough race. I tried to manage the situation from the beginning, without pushing, in order to get to the end of the race with the best possible grip conditions. In the final laps, when I got closer to the group ahead of me, I started to feel the drop in grip. This weekend, unlike in testing, I had a hard time getting the bike stopped and making it turn the way I would have liked. We need to roll up our sleeves to get back to the front, but I think this race was a bit of a one-off.”
Marc Márquez (#93 Ducati Lenovo Team) – DNF
“It’s true that other riders, even in testing, had jumped the kerb in that spot and nothing happened. I ran wide at turn four, but when I ran over the kerb I felt a strong impact and that the tyre had deflated due to the rim breaking. It was an unfortunate incident, as I was managing the situation. I knew it would have been a long race and my approach was therefore a conservative one, but in the end I saw that I was getting closer to the podium, so I tried to attack. Unfortunately, these things can happen, but we know we’re already at a good level.”