"Pecco is one of the fastest riders, but he's also
capable of thinking throughout the race and mak-
ing the right strategy," said Sporting Director Paolo
Ciabatti. "Sometimes, we didn't come to the perfect
situation for the Sprint race. But he has a very close
connection with [Cristian] Gabarrini [Crew Chief],
[Tomasso] Pagano [Electronics Engineer], and the
rest of the team. They analyze the data, and they
almost always come up with a solution for Sunday."
A glance at the year's results underlined just
how that approach unfolded. Bagnaia won seven
times on Sunday and racked up 15 podiums.
On the five occasions, he wasn't there, he twice
crashed out of the lead [Austin, Barcelona] twice
fell from second [Argentina, India] and once out of
the victory fight [France]. In other words, the man
who carried the number one in the premier class
for the first time since 2011 was always there.
This is no coincidence. His four years of previ
-
ous premier-class experience have taught him
how to hone his technique and working method.
"One thing I'm always really focused on is to
improve my feeling in terms of the race pace on
used tires," explained the Italian. "If you look at the
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