3km/h speeding penalty costs Bagnaia MotoGP title lead

Francesco Bagnaia remained firmly in the MotoGP title hunt by recovering from 16th to fourth in Sunday's French Grand Prix.

But the Ducati star might well have joined race-winning team-mate Jack Miller on the podium had he not, like Miller, received a double long-lap penalty for speeding in pit lane during his bike swap.

Bagnaia revealed he lost seven-seconds serving those laps, without which, on paper, he would have finished five-seconds ahead of third place Fabio Quartararo (instead of 1.8s behind) and thus retained the world championship lead.

"I was just asking why I received these penalties because I was sure I entered pitlane with the correct speed, but they tell me I was with 3kmph more," Bagnaia said.

"It is very difficult to feel 3km/h on that bike and in this situation where you don’t have too much time and you have to change the bike… I didn't feel that I was faster, but it was correct that I received the penalties because the rules are there.

"I just lose seven-seconds for that reason. Without these seconds I would be closer to the first two riders. The rules are there to be respected but next time I will pay more attention to it."

Bagnaia confirmed that he had activated his 60km/h pit-lane speed limiter but hadn't braked hard enough initially: "I activated it but when you do that you have 70km/h so I had to stop more the bike."

Ducati Corse general manager Gigi Dall’Igna said: "Both Jack and Pecco did an incredible race, and we could have taken first, second [Johann Zarco] and third today. We just need to see what happened in the pit lane when we exceeded the speed limit during the flag-to-flag."

Nonetheless, Bagnaia said he has enjoyed his first flag-to-flag race experience and now heads into his and Ducati's home race at Mugello just one-point behind Quartararo.

"The flag-to-flag was the first time for me! It wasn't easy, but in a way, I enjoyed it," he said. "In the beginning, I didn't feel completely comfortable on the bike, but in the wet, I was able to find my rhythm right away.

"Finishing fourth in these conditions is a really good result, also considering that last year I was very slow in the rain. Now I am second in the Championship, just one point behind Quartararo, so I'm delighted".