MotoGP Assen: Bagnaia ‘terrified to crash again’

Ducati Lenovo’s Pecco Bagnaia was back on MotoGP winning form at Assen on Sunday despite ‘scary’ conditions and a determined Aprilia.

With three DNF’s in the last six races, Bagnaia has been the literal definition of ‘win it or bin it’ with top step success in the opposing trio. It was a history he was all to aware of during Sunday’s 26-lap Dutch GP.

“Yeah, I’m very, very happy,” the Italian confirmed after securing the spoils. “Wasn’t easy today for the condition. I was very terrified to crash again so I just tried to be smart and just try to don’t push it over the limit and finally, we were able to do a great race again.

“We have worked well all the weekend and we were prepared for this race. The only thing that we weren’t expecting was the rain! Was scary the rain because I was trying to manage but [Marco] Bezzecchi behind me was recovering two or three tenths by lap. So it wasn’t easy to bounce back and try to be strong again. But was enough to win here, to win again, so perfect day for me.”

With rain flags waving ten laps in, it was a case of managing expectations as much as the conditions for the 25-year-old.

“My problem was that I saw the rain and I was thinking that was more slippery than what in reality was,” Bagnaia explained. “But looking at the pace of Bezzecchi that was behind me, was like dry, was like without thinking it was raining so I just tried to do the same and was the correct choice.

“The problem is when it’s raining, when it’s light rain, and you had the tear off, the rain comes into your screen, your visor, and you start to see not clear the things. So I just removed the tear off and I lost like six-tenths/five-tenths in this lap. So I lost a lot of time and he was catching me because he was