| Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team victorious in Assen Sprint Race. Bastianini fights his way to fourth place |
- Second position for Jorge Martín with Pramac Racing Team’s Ducati
Francesco Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team are the winners of the eighth Sprint Race of the season at the TT Circuit Assen, at the end of a masterful performance for the reigning world champion aboard his Desmosedici GP machine #1. Enea Bastianini put together an excellent comeback from eleventh place on the grid all the way up to fourth position at the finish line.
After securing the pole position courtesy of a new outright lap record for the Assen circuit (1:30.540), Bagnaia had the perfect start to the encounter and stayed in the lead up to the chequered flag – thanks to an excellent race pace. After the initial stages, Pecco began pulling away gradually and crossed the line 2.5secs ahead of Martín – which allowed him to narrow his gap to the championship lead down to 15 points.
Bastianini showed all his competitiveness in the race following a challenging qualifying session, which relegated him on the fourth row of the grid. Enea’s comeback was a consistent one, which culminated in a perfect overtake on Alex Márquez at the final chicane for fourth position. With only five laps left, however, the gap to the top three turned out to be too big for his rostrum hopes.
The eighth Sunday race of the 2024 MotoGP season will get underway tomorrow at 14:00 local time (GMT +2) after the traditional, 9:40am warm up.
Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 1st
“At this track, it is important to stay extremely focused while riding in a smooth and precise way and without overdoing, as this circuit is quite the unforgiving one. I’m very happy with how this sprint race went: to be lapping under the 1’32secs barrier from start to finish was incredible, so I’m satisfied at every level. It wasn’t easy, because I can’t say I love the soft front-tyre option as it makes the bike move a bit too much at the front. I didn’t push in the first three laps and Jorge (Martín) was very close, but then I was able to build some margin as the race progressed. Let’s see how tomorrow goes: if the conditions remain the same, then I believe our tyre choice won’t change.”
Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 4th
“It was quite an unusual day. I expected to be quicker this morning: we didn’t change anything on the bike, so I was expecting a similar feeling to the one I had yesterday. Instead, the bike was moving a lot more, even though the wind was not as strong. The traffic on the track surely didn’t help either. We started the afternoon with a different base set-up and things went a lot better; I managed to complete some overtakes and finished fourth. I was hoping to get on the podium, but it wasn’t to be, so let’s see if we can achieve this goal in the longer race.”
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