With his win in Malaysia, the Italian rider left behind a MotoGP title which he will win in Valencia in two weeks to be convicted
Beyond catastrophe, motorcycling will have a new pattern in the queen class in 2022. Pecco Bagnaia is within reach of his first MotoGP title and the first Italian championship of the post-Valentino Rossi era. If he couldn’t condemn him at the Sepang circuit, it was due to the tenacity of a Fabio Quartararo who resisted handing over the crown with his podium, but it would be worth the world leader to add just two points in the last round of the year, Valencia. Or which is the same, finishing 14th. And that, as long as the French won the race. A cabal so difficult to produce that Marc Márquez, the most experienced driver in this matter of playing for championships, summed it up in one sentence: “Quartararo can no longer win this title, now it is only Bagnaia who can lose it” .
That’s the general feeling of the paddock and that’s why they celebrated their rider’s victory at Ducati yesterday as a prelude to a title. Or maybe because after a more tense race than expected, they breathed a sigh of relief as Bagnaia crossed the checkered flag victoriously. Until then, the bosses of the Italian factory did not have their shirts up to their necks, when they saw another pilot of the brand, the rebel Enea Bastianini, do battle with its leader and argue for victory.
One of the images of the race was precisely the televised conclave that took place in the pit lane between Gigi Dall’Igna (general manager), Paolo Ciabatti (sports director) and Davide Tardozzi (team manager), or what is the same, the “Holy Trinity ” from Ducati, who decides whether to activate the team orders for Bagnaia to win the race. Some orders, which were not followed if we believe what Tardozzi later said, “we trusted our pilots.” What is clear is that logic prevailed and Bagnaia won, although Bastianini clung to his handlebars as if to show that he could have talked about that win had there not been a title at stake.
Bagnaia and Bastianini will be teammates in 2023, with the latter being promoted to the official Italian squad. But as became clear in the race and also in the press conference that followed, they have no ‘feel’ to speak of. The “Beast”, as Bastianini is known in the paddock, denied having let his future partner win twice with a cryptic “I know this title is very important for Ducati”. For his part, Bagnaia celebrated his victory by uploading a photo on his social networks eating a hot dog and with a non-innocent message: «Team orders? I just ordered a hot dog.”
Whatever happens in Valencia, Pecco Bagnaia has proven to be the strongest rider of 2022. Backed by the mechanical superiority of its bike over the competition, of course, there were seven other Ducatis on the grid. With Malaysia, the Turin rider has taken seven wins so far this season, ahead of Quartararo’s three or Aleix Espargaró’s only, his most consistent rivals this year. Above all, he cemented his success in an overwhelming second half of the season, adding 177 of the 225 points at stake and overcoming a 91-point deficit to the French driver.
It is not new to see Bagnaia give his best in the decisive part of the World Cup. As early as 2021, he contested the Quartararo title and triumphed in four of the last six Grand Prix of the year. His response then came late. Although this year he also faced a much more consistent and solvent rider than him. And it is that, the meteoric rise of the Italian coincided with the collapse of the Frenchman, who has barely added two podiums and four outs during this period.
The same can be said of Aleix Espargaró, although in his case the downturn comes not so much from the driver’s side as from his team. The Aprilia, which took on the almighty Ducati in the first half of the season, has faded on this Asian tour. Four races outside of Europe in which the Spanish driver managed to score only 18 points out of 100 despite all races, and now he sees even his third position in the championship in jeopardy. It was fun while it lasted, despite the bad taste in the mouth left over from a year-end that, Aleix judged, “has been too big for us.”
Source: La Verdad
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