MotoGP Jerez: ‘Everything was perfect’ - Bagnaia

Having struggled at the start of the 2022 season, Saturday saw Pecco Bagnaia score his maiden pole on the Ducati Lenovo GP22.

A feat he accomplished in some style, after smashing the 2020 all-time lap record by four tenths of a second thanks to his blistering 1’36.170 effort.

“After the hard work we did from the first test, I’m so happy,” Bagnaia said from the Andalucian paddock. “I’m so happy.

“Finally our potential is coming from our side and I’m so happy because today we did my best ever lap time I did in my life. Was perfect. Everything was perfect!

“I was wondering that the pole position was 36.5, 36.6,” he said of the day’s potential. “I was not thinking on doing that lap time but everything was perfect so I’m so happy to have done it. I tried to push and I didn’t do any mistakes. Normally when you push like this is easy to go a bit wide, maybe in a corner, but today everything was perfect.

“I had the luck to race in Portimao because I was feeling great again with my bike and the feeling was back in the braking and we started well this weekend. Every session I was improving a bit and today also in FP4 my feeling is was really good.

The success denied his title rival Fabio Quartararo a clean sweep of five poles in his premier class career at the Jerez Circuit- Angel Nieto, but the Yamaha man remains his biggest challenge in Sunday’s 25-lap race.

“For tomorrow I think that Fabio have still a bit of gap compare me but in the FP4 we were more close so let’s wait tomorrow,” he admitted. “The race will be long and it’s very important to manage the tyres in this track so let’s see. It’s too soon to predict now but I feel confident and strong to fight.

“I think we still missing one or two tenths per lap but yesterday we