“Top speed is not everything,” Francesco Bagnaia impressed with the immaculate cornering ability of the Yamaha

“Top speed is not everything,” Francesco Bagnaia impressed with the immaculate cornering ability of the Yamaha

Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo

Francesco Bagnaia has posed a threat to Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo in his quest to defend his maiden title. But an unfortunate accident involving him and Takaaki Nakagami at the Catalan GP has costed him a handful of points allowing Fabio Quartararo to build a healthy lead in the drivers championship. The Frenchman was at the peak of his powers as he stoked a flawless performance to sit pretty at the top of the championship.

Carlos Pernat, before the Italian and the Catalan GP, had said that the next two races shall pose a serious challenge to Yamaha and Fabio Quartararo would not even be able to save the face for them. This was said after Ducati enjoyed an impressive string of results due to their superior top speed to Yamaha. Since, both these circuits have pretty long straights, it was supposed to be advantage Ducati.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tenFQdZEfIg

But, Fabio Quartararo was none of it as he demolished the competition to finish P2 in Mugello and emerge as a comfortable winner in Catalunya. That has to go down to the cornering ability of the Yamaha M1 which gave that edge to Fabio Quartararo despite him being slower on the straights. While others failed to find the balance between protecting the tyres and finding that pace, Quartararo got it spot on.

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Francesco Bagnaia in awe of Yamaha’s cornering ability after Fabio Quartararo’s dazzling performance in the scorching heat of Catalunya

Francesco Bagnaia
Francesco Bagnaia

This has gone on to impress Francesco Bagnaia who feels that he would prefer to have that cornering ability rather than top speed. He said, “We can also think that this year I’m preferring to have less top speed, but more handling. That is the main thing now. Yamaha is the perfect example of that.”

“In this moment they [Yamaha and Quartararo] have more handling and we can also see clearly that the top speed is not everything.”

“This year we have improved a lot [but] still we need more edge grip like Yamaha has. So we are working on it,” as reported by crash.

It’s been some two weeks for Yamaha which saw them retain Fabio Quartararo and also get on top of some of their issues to help him win the Catalan GP. They would like to build on that and help him retain his title.

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