Ducati Sporting Club UK > News Items > Ducati Press Releases > Fourth place in Le Mans Sprint Race for Bastianini and Ducati Lenovo Team, Bagnaia retires from the encounter

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MotoGP | Round 5 - French GP 2024 | Saturday 11 May 2024

Fourth place in Le Mans Sprint Race for Bastianini and Ducati Lenovo Team, Bagnaia retires from the encounter

• Race win goes to Jorge Martín aboard Pramac Racing Team’s Ducati, followed by Marc Márquez on the Ducati of Gresini Racing

The Ducati Lenovo Team has scored a fourth-place finish in today’s sprint race at Le Mans courtesy of a superb performance by Enea Bastianini, who managed to make his way back to fourth from tenth place on the grid, while coming very close to a podium result at the end of the 13-lap encounter. Francesco Bagnaia retired from the race in the early stages after starting from second place.

Following an unfortunate end to Q2, which saw him deprived of a last time attack due to a yellow flag situation, Bastianini had a good start to the race from row four as he immediately made up one place and showed a competitive pace aboard his Desmosedici GP machine #23. As soon as he reached fifth position and with clear track ahead of him, Enea’s rhythm improved further in the second half of the race. In the final stages, he gave it all to bridge the gap to Viñales for third place, eventually crossing the line fourth with a 0.6secs gap from his rival.

After lining up on the grid with the spare bike, following his late crash in Q2, Bagnaia lost several positions at the start as he dropped all the way down to fifteenth after the first few corners of the race. At the end of lap three, Pecco made his way back to the pits, ultimately retiring from the encounter.

Tomorrow’s, 27-lap race for the French GP will get underway at 14:00 local time (GMT +2).

Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 4th
“My pace in this sprint race was very good, I was consistently quick up to the chequered flag. What really made the difference is that I was able to overtake in a much easier way than previous races and that surely give me something extra. This is a key thing for the future. It would have been nice to battle with Jorge (Martín) but never say never, let’s see how it goes tomorrow. We’re all very close in terms of performance so the race will be a hard-fought one, as is the championship after all.”

Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – DNF
“Unfortunately these things can happen, but it surely wasn’t easy. Already from the warmup lap I felt something was different and I felt like it was difficult to do anything. The team is at work to understand what happened, but we’ll surely be good tomorrow and ready to do well. We’ve already shown we can be competitive this weekend and our pace is top-three worthy. We’re aware of our potential and we know that with a good start and the right feeling, we can battle for the win.”