Mahindra’s Pecco moves from 16th to 7th in Spain

Mapfre Team Mahindra rider Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia claimed his best finish of the year so far, after fighting hard from the sixth row of the grid to squeeze his way to the seventh place in the Spanish GP. He narrowly lost the sixth place on the final hairpin.

“That was a really enjoyable race, because I was fighting all the way with (Romano) Fenati and (Jorge) Navarro. In the last lap I tried to pass Fenati, and I got ahead, but in the last corner I made a little mistake, and finished seventh behind him. It was good for us because we started from 16th. Tomorrow in the test we have something to try to improve straight-line speed. We need to qualify better, because from row six it is difficult to overtake a lot of riders. If we start better, we can stay in the front, I think,” Bagnaia said.

Team-mate Jorge Martin made it two Mahindras in the points as he claimed 14th place, also the GP rookie’s best result so far, as the European season begins following three “flyaway” races.

Bagnaia’s pace was good enough to match the leading group of five riders, but his starting position from 16th place, in the middle of row six, meant that by the time he had fought his way to the front of his group the leaders were out of reach.

It proved not only the 18-year-old Italian’s ability, but also that of the completely redesigned 2015 version of the Mahindra MGP3O machine. The need now is to focus on better qualifying results, to capitalise on the obvious technical progress.