Bagnaia reignites title hopes as Quartararo crashes out at Assen

AgenciesAssen (Netherlands)Francesco Bagnaia reignited his 2022 MotoGP title hopes with victory at a dramatic Dutch Grand Prix, in which championship leader Fabio Quartararo failed to finish.Ducati rider Bagnaia had crashed out in four of the previous 10 races this year, but he took full advantage of pole position on Sunday by comfortably holding on to first place.Quartararo endured a rare off day in Assen, the Monster Energy Yamaha rider finishing outside the points after twice crashing to see his championship lead cut.Bagnaia is now 66 points behind the Frenchman heading into the five-week break, while Aleix Espargaro is within 21 points of top spot after making an exceptional recovery.The drama at Circuit Assen started at Turn 5 when Quartararo, in an attempt to take second place from Espargaro, collided with his rival in a hugely contentious moment.Both riders ended in the gravel before rejoining. But while Espargaro brilliantly made up ground, Quartararo was left with too much to do and crashed for a second time.The reigning world champion high-sided out of Turn 5 and landed awkwardly, bringing an end to his race and marking his first MotoGP retirement since Valencia in 2020.The rain started to fall soon after, adding even more drama to a race that had it all, though ultimately Bagnaia saw things through by holding off Marco Bezzecchi.Jack Miller, who served a long lap penalty, was not able to join his Ducati team-mate on the podium as he failed to catch Maverick Vinales - his first top-three finish for Aprilia.Miller was then overtaken by Espargaro, who also moved in front of Brad Binder to climb from sixth to fourth in an exceptional final lap as the title race was blown wide open.Because of his recent run of retirements, Bagnaia admitted that the light rain that fell in latter stages of the Dutch GP made his scared of suffering another crash."Was scary, really scary,” Bagnaia said of the late rainfall."When I looked at the big screen, I just saw the screen one time, I was seeing Aleix on the gravel and a blue bike there."So, I imagined it was Fabio with Aleix, so for sure we had a bit of luck."But then I just said ‘ok, I can be more relaxed, I can do my race with more calm’. But looking at the gap with [Marco] Bezzecchi, he was always catching."So, I had to push again, I had to open this gap again to be smarter and more calm again later in the race."But then the rain came. When I saw the rain I just slowed down a bit, but Bezzecchi was pushing again."So, it was very difficult. I was terrified to crash again, so the main thing was to finish the race. It wasn’t easy, but I tried to be smart, I tried to not push over the limit.”Bagnaia explained that he initially lost time to the chasing Bezzecchi when the rain started to fall because he thought the track was wetter than it actually was, and was thrown off by water droplets flicking onto the inside of his Ducati’s screen when he removed a visor tear-off."My problem was that I saw the rain and I was thinking it was more slippery than what it was in reality,” he added."The problem is when it’s raining, and when it’s light rain, and you have the tear off, the rain comes from the tear off onto your screen."You start to not see things clearly, so I just removed the tear off and I lost like six tenths, five tenths."I lost a lot of time, and he [Bezzecchi] was catching me like it was not raining."I was pushing without pushing because when it’s raining you can’t hit the corners like normal. But I found a way to ride and it was ok.” (inputs motorsport.com)