Bagnaia bags a podium place for Mahindra in Italian GP

Young Italian rider Pecco Bagnaia earned third podium place for Team Aspar Mahindra of the season with his third-place finish at the Italian GP in Moto 3 event at the Moto GP championship, here.
Courtesy his consistent good show, Bagnaia is now placed fifth in riders' table.
Second Mahindra rider Jorge Martin was part of the pack, running as high as eighth place several times but crossed the line 14th place. He was two seconds away from the winner.
The 19-year-old Italian Bagnaia had set the second-fastest qualifying time, only to be bumped back to the third row for straying minutely over the track limits.

Undaunted, he finished the first lap in fifth place and played a leading role in the scrabbling pack for the full race distance.
Robbed of a podium last year by three thousandths of a second, Bagnaia played his cards better this time to cross the line three hundredths of a second behind second-place Fabio Di Giannantonio and six thousandths of a second ahead of Niccolo Antonelli (both Honda).

"A good weekend for me and the team - I think my best in the World Championship so far. We've been consistently in the top five, and finishing third at Mugello is amazing. I pushed to the limit in the last lap to try to close the gap to Brad, and maybe if Quartararo had been further away from me I could have fought for the win," he said after the race.

"But third is a good result, and I am happy with my third podium this year. It was an amazingly close race, and you could go from first to eighth in one lap - which is not easy. It's difficult to stay calm with bikes all around you. I tried to stay at the head of the group on every lap, but I went wide at the first corner with a few laps to go. I managed to go fast, overtake a bunch of riders, and finish on the podium."
The next race, in two weeks, is at a similarly fast circuit in Catalunya.