In Bagnaia’s opinion, the MotoGP title fight is “unbalanced”

Reigning world champion Pecco Bagnaia says after his difficult Emilia Romagna Grand Prix that the championship is “unbalanced” due to problems with Michelin’s MotoGP tires.

The Ducati rider led practice on Friday and took pole position on Saturday before taking a triumphant sprint win in front of his home crowd.

He said he arrived on Sunday with the pace to win and “everything was ready.” He led the first lap and was in the lead for the next two laps.

Bagnaia was then overtaken by title rival Jorge Martin on lap four before being forced to slow down due to problems with his medium rear tyre, which he said “didn't work for 15 laps” despite not having any problems with temperature or pressure.

His time deteriorated from 1:31.757 minutes on the second lap to 1:32.034 minutes on the fifth lap, remaining in the late 1:31 range for several laps while the leaders were about 0.5 seconds faster.

It took the two-time champion until around lap 15 to regain his previous pace, at which point he was almost three seconds behind leader Martin and second-placed Enea Bastianini.

Speaking about his tyre problems after the race, Bagnaia said it was “a shame” as he had put in a strong performance throughout the rest of the weekend and believes it is a “big problem” that tyre problems are affecting the title fight.

“Right from the start, on the warm-up lap, I lost the rear in the last corner, I lost the rear in the first corner and in turn 13, I lost the front in turn 14,” he said.

“I really pushed myself and did 1:31.8 minutes, 1:31.7 minutes and 1:31.8 minutes. And then from one lap to the next I improved my lap time by six, seven, eight tenths without doing anything, just by riding.

“Well, I don't know. The feeling with the rear tyre was more or less the same as last year in Barcelona, ​​when I had a lot of trouble on the warm-up lap and lost it in the second corner. Luckily this track has more grip than Barcelona, ​​but it was the same.

“The rear tire wasn't working, I was like a cone for the other riders and that's really strange. I've never heard a rider complain that the rear tire started to work after 15 laps, I think that's new for everyone.”

Bagnaia said his Ducati colleague Marc Marquez struggled with the medium rear wheel during practice on Friday, and Bastianini also had problems on the first day of the weekend.

When asked what it would mean for the championship if tyre problems could affect the title fight, he replied: “It's a shame, but I know 100 percent that Michelin doesn't know what happened with the tyres.

“That's a problem, but they don't know it. They want to give us the same chance every time, but for some reason sometimes it doesn't work out the same.

“It's a shame for me because I rode perfectly all weekend. I was happy with my physical condition, I could push as much as I wanted, everything was prepared.

“Then I came into the race with the pace to win it. I started from pole position and led the first lap. Then I had to slow down because the tires weren't ready. The tires weren't there.

“It's a huge problem that's making the championship unbalanced at the moment. I've had three situations in the last three Grands Prix that were out of our control. It's true that I just lost five points in the two Misanos, but it's also true that things could have gone a lot better for us.”

“The possibility of coming home from here as championship leaders was very high, but we didn't have the chance to do that.”

Bagnaia's Grand Prix finally ended with an accident at Turn 8 with six laps to go, in which the front blocked and the car ended up in the gravel.

It was his seventh retirement this season, his third in a full-distance Grand Prix, with the remaining non-points coming in sprint races.

“I don't know what was normal today, everything has been pretty strange since this morning,” he said. “But nothing, I was straight because it was 32 degrees and normally in track conditions you can crash straight away.”

“I did not brake hard, but 18 metres before [I did on] the fastest lap I've done and yet I lost the front as if I had hit a bump, but there isn't one. Strange, but everything is strange from the start.”

Although he had made up time on the riders ahead of him before his crash, according to Bagnaia he would not have been able to win even without an early end to the race.

“Win the race? No,” he said. “Look what happened next [between Martin and Bastianini]yes. But I have gained weight.

“It's true that after that lap they started to reduce the lap time a lot, so maybe yes. I've already made up a second, 1.5 seconds, so maybe I could win the race, but closing the gap and overtaking are two different stories.

“But in any case it would have been good to finish the race.”

Bagnaia is now 24 points behind Martin with six rounds to go. The championship goes straight into the next round and in just five days the paddock rushes to the next round in Indonesia.