The Italian double in Misano, added to the authoritarian dominance of the transalpine brand in MotoGP, excites the tifosi, who need new idols in the motorcycle world
The transalpine sports press rose early Monday after the MotoGP and Formula 1 races with conflicting feelings. While the iconic Ferrari is ever further removed from winning a title that has eluded them since 2007, and bloodied by the embarrassing pit-lane mistakes with Carlos Sainz, it proudly displays the Ducati flag, which represents the hegemonic brand in the queen-time. category of motorcycling, in which it takes off with Italian talent. So much so that ‘Tuttosport’, one of the leading sports newspapers in that country, opened its front page on Monday with the headline ‘Il rosso vero’ (the real red) and a photo of Pecco Bagnaia.
The Italian won his fourth race in a row at Misano and now has six wins in the last nine Grands Prix. It’s in the numbers of the championship’s great legends. In fact, he is the first Ducati rider to achieve this poker of victories, something only three names had previously achieved in the MotoGP category: Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa. No one else. Ducati is also in historical records. It leads Yamaha by 110 points in the constructors’ standings and with 150 points at stake (there are six races left in 2022), it could secure this championship at the next Aragon Grand Prix.
But there is also talk of the new ‘BB’ duo in Italy. Bagnaia Bastianini. The riders who crossed the finish line with only 34 thousandths in the last Grand Prix of San Marino and who according to ‘Tuttosport’ represent a new era in Italian motorcycling, “more beautiful, younger, fresh and winning”. Pecco Bagnaia (25) and Enea Bastianini (24) will be teammates in the official Ducati team next year and will try to fill the huge void left for Italian fans by the withdrawal of Valentino Rossi. The Misano circuit enjoyed a duel that lasted until the checkered flag was waved, but almost ended in tragedy. And it is that, when almost everyone assumed they would settle for the 1-2 that had been held for half the race, an irreverent Bastianini tried desperately on the last lap and was very close to Bagnaia. Luckily nothing happened, but the faces in the Ducati box were a poem at the time.
They assure the Italian factory that they have not yet activated the team orders and that any driver of the brand can fight “with a head”. But the truth is that there are already important voices in the box asking to bet everything on Pecco Bagnaia. And it’s not a bad bet when you consider that it is the only one Ducati has left to become champions in 2022. Ranking up, Bagnaia is already second in the championship after overtaking Aleix Espargaró. He is 30 points behind Fabio Quartararo, who still has the psychological advantage of more than one race, but lost 61 points in the last four. So it’s normal for the Frenchman to be worried and frustrated by what’s coming his way. And the next stop is the Aragon GP, where Pecco Bagnaia won last year.
Misano’s appointment also marked the farewell to Andrea Dovizioso and with his departure also leaves the last representative of one of the best generations of motorcycling in history, if not the best. It started to get lost with Casey Stoner’s early retirement in 2012, and in recent years they’ve said goodbye to Dani Pedrosa in 2018, Jorge Lorenzo in 2019 and Valentino Rossi in 2021. Dovizioso is closing the loop. Without the track record of his rivals (he only won the 125cc title in 2004), he was the second most raced rider in World Championship history after Rossi. And most importantly, with three consecutive MotoGP runner-up finishes (2017, 2018 and 2019), they all competed against the rider who acted as a retaining wall for that golden generation, a man named Marc Márquez.
At the age of 36, the former MotoGP rider hung up his helmet after crossing the finish line in 12th place. Always thoughtful and calculating, while on the track, he later told the media how he had felt traveling his last miles as a motorcyclist. “All I thought was that I didn’t want to do anything crazy before the end of the race, so keeping the emotions in check was no problem.” Pure Dovizioso.
Source: La Verdad
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