Brake problems again behind lack of pace for Bagnaia at MotoGP Czech GP

Francesco Bagnaia qualified on pole for the MotoGP Czech Grand Prix thanks to a miraculous lap that nobody saw coming, as well as yellow flag madness that stopped any potential challengers from improving.

However, he didn’t walk away with even a podium from either the sprint race or the main race during the Brno weekend. 

Bagnaia reckons his brakes were the problem, having troubled him all year with the factory Ducati rider now 168 points off championship leader and team-mate Marc Marquez.

“This time it was a bit different,” said Bagnaia after the main race. “I was able in the last part of the race to be faster, so this is the only improvement I did. 

“But honestly, I was always one of the hardest to overtake in the past, one of the strongest under braking. Right now, I’m very slow at this point; everyone is better than me.

“Everyone is overtaking me on braking like it’s easy [for them]. We need to understand this thing as quickly as possible.

“I always put all my effort on braking because I knew my performance was coming from the braking, and right now it’s one of the slowest things I have, so we need to improve. 

“It’s difficult to think what to improve because it’s from the first race that we didn’t change at all, but we are trying to solve it.”

Rewinding a few races, at the Aragon GP, Bagnaia fitted 355mm brake discs instead of the 340mm ones he was running up until that point during the weekend.

The change seemed to improve his confidence on Sunday and allowed him to finish on the podium in the main race at the Motorland circuit.

Bagnaia isn’t running the 355mm discs anymore but explained that other changes on the bike bring a similar effect in feel, even if the bike is still a handful.

“We just changed the pump on the lever,” explained the Italian. “It’s doing what the 355mm [discs] were doing, so I feel better with that. I can manage it better, I can control it better, but it’s still very tough.

“I have a lot of movement, a lot of locking, and it’s difficult to brake as I want. Last year I was always braking super hard, making a lot of slides, and the back was stopping a lot. 

“This season, I need to be very precise, very straight the moment I start to brake, and I can’t have any sliding because the rear is not helping to stop.”