The threat of extreme winds for Sunday forced MotoGP to alter the schedule for the Australian GP weekend, with the main race – won by Johann Zarco – taking place on Saturday.
The sprint race was rescheduled for Sunday at 1pm local time, but had to be cancelled after conditions deteriorated through the Moto3 and Moto2 contests – the latter seeing 10 riders crash in nine laps before it was red flagged.
Weather disruption isn’t an unusual feature of an Australian GP weekend during the country’s spring season, with championship leader Bagnaia believing it would be better to move the event to the summer earlier in the year.
“We are asking for it, but I think it’s difficult to do for many reasons – maybe because of the schedule of Formula 1, I don’t know,” Bagnaia said when asked if this weekend should prompt Dorna and the race organisers to shift the event to earlier in the year.
“It’s clear that for me it could be better to move Mandalika and this race to the start [of the season] because Phillip Island in the summer is maybe better than these conditions.
“Maybe the wind will be the same but you’ll have sun, the temperature is good.
“Today in the warm-up it was impossible to warm up the front brake, and we were arriving into corner 10 every lap without brakes. So, also the temperature was too low.”