MotoGP Germany: Bagnaia ‘happy but 30 laps will be a challenge’

Ducati’s Pecco Bagnaia scored his third pole position of 2022 after repeatedly breaking circuit records across the Sachsenring weekend.

The Lenovo rider claimed the first new lap record on Friday before bettering himself on two more occasions during Saturday’s FP3 with an overall best of 1’19.765.

While increasingly hot temperatures made conditions unfavourable for another record attempt, the Italian still secured the sole 1’19 lap during qualifying to claim command of Sunday’s grid with his a 1’19.931 effort.

“I’m very happy!” Bagnaia exclaimed from Germany on Saturday afternoon. “From the start of the weekend, FP1 I started feeling great with my bike and everything was already there. So I didn’t change anything in the setting and normally when it’s like this, it’s just easy to focus more on the tyres, on what to do in the race with used tyres so was great to start like this.

“Today, the qualifying wasn’t easy, also FP4 for the conditions was very hot and the wind was disturbing us a bit. But in any case, I’m very, very happy about this pole position in a track where last year I was struggling more.”

When asked what his biggest challenge was for the approaching race, Bagnaia had one thing on his mind. “The fact that we have 30 laps!” he answered.

“Remaining concentrate for all these laps is never easy,” he elaborated, “but it’s something that we can do.

“Last year was easy for me because I was so behind, I was 16th and I had to recover a lot of positions so was a fast race for me. But when you’re in the front and you have to lead all the laps is always more difficult and also for the consumption of the front tyre. So a lot of things in this track aren’t easy.

“Maybe we can ask all the riders of the MotoGP to reduce a bit