The Ducati rider missed out on pole place to Espargaro by zero.031s, however already anticipates the Barcelona race to be a special problem because of the scorching and slippery observe situations within the excessive temperatures, which is able to make tyre conservation over the race distance the important thing check.
Aprilia’s Espargaro demonstrated eye-catching race tempo in follow, whereas topping three of the 4 follow classes, as his RS-GP bike may discover higher mechanical grip within the situations in comparison with his rivals.
Whereas Bagnaia doesn’t imagine there’s an enormous deficit in outright tempo, he predicts the key problem might be to maintain a robust tempo over a race distance with out struggling a drastic rear tyre efficiency drop.
“I don’t know methods to beat him [Espargaro], however I feel that the important thing might be to be good with the rear tyre for the entire race,” Bagnaia, who has received two of the final three races, mentioned.
“It’s true which you can go quick within the first laps however then it’s important to be fixed till the end of the race and for those who push at the beginning you’ll be able to’t be fixed till the end of the race.
“It is going to be a race of survival as a result of it’s important to be very, very good on acceleration.
“We did completely different work in comparison with the others in FP4 to see if the tyre could be OK and I’m fairly pleased with the results of FP4 of my tempo.”

Aleix Espargaro, Aprilia Racing Workforce, Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Workforce, Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Manufacturing facility Racing
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Reigning MotoGP world champion Fabio Quartararo agreed with Bagnaia’s evaluation and in addition feels he has the pace to combat for the win, however is cautious of constructing his rear tyre final the space.
“I feel we’ve the potential and we’ve the pace, we aren’t the one one to have the pace, however I really feel we’ve the potential [too],” Quartararo, who begins the Catalan GP from third place, mentioned.
“Everyone is aware of right here how essential is the tyre consumption, the rear grip, and after Moto2 [race] we all know that previously there may be at all times much less grip, however everyone is prepared for it so I feel everybody has a transparent thought methods to handle the rear tyre.”
Regardless of dominating the race weekend up to now, simply as he did in Argentina when he secured a breakthrough pole place and victory again in April, Espargaro doesn’t really feel direct comparisons will be made in Barcelona due to the completely different observe situations which received’t permit him to take advantage of the identical benefits within the race.
“It’s completely different to Argentina, there it was not straightforward, it’s by no means straightforward in MotoGP, however I had some margin with my rivals, I used to be little bit quicker,” he defined.
“Right here I’m struggling like them as a result of this observe with this lack of grip it is vitally tough to go quick. It’s not a matter of how briskly you go, in FP4 I may go together with the medium tyre 1m39.5s however then you definitely destroy the tyre and you might be completed.
“So, to know the restrict and the tyre consumption is just not as straightforward right here, as in Argentina you could possibly push no matter you wished and the tyre was not an issue. It’s not like that right here.
“Ranging from pole tomorrow will assist however it will be a really tough race.”
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