Bagnaia Profile: The most Spanish of ‘Rossi’s Sons’

the old dream of Valentino Rossi to create a successful structure to produce a future Italian world champion by the time he retires has paid off. This November 6 and where he lost two MotoGP world champion crowns in 2006 and 2015, a new star took over, Francesco Bagnaia (Turin, 1-14-1997). But before becoming one of the ‘Sports Sons of Rossi’ he was a pearl of the Spanish quarry.

Growing up in Chivasso, a town located about 20 kilometers from the Piedmontese capital and where the family lives, his father Pietro and his uncle Claudio instilled a love of motorcycles in little Pecco, a nickname which only his close friends use and which he owes to his older sister Carola, his current assistant in the races and with whom he has been for almost 20 months, pronouncing his name like that when he small. His first motorcycle at age seven was a Beta 50 cross country bike, a Christmas present. First, he took him to the garden of the house, which he materially destroyed, and the Bagnaias understood that the boy needed to have experience on a real track. After the minicross came the speed, the minibikes and that jumped to Spain to run in the best age-specific competitions in the world.

Uncle Claudio used to visit his brother Pietro riding a new Ducati 996 and later a 998 that little Francesco was fascinated by the sound of its engine. He always said that Ducati bike was his first love and when he got to MotoGP he didn’t want to ride any bike other than the red bike from Borgo Panigale.

Trained in Spanish motorcycling

But first he has to break many stones, he is not a born talent but a developed talent, he has to work hard since he came to Spanish motorcycling with the title of European Mini GP champion 2009 and after getting the approval of Emilio Alzamora for his Monlau Competition. He spent three years with them, debuting in the Mediterranean pre-GP 125 championship in 2010 and finishing 2nd and in 2011 he participated in the 125cc Spanish Championship, finishing third behind his teammate Alex Rins and Alex Márquez, and in 2012 he repeated his place in Moto3 CEV behind his teammate Álex Márquez and his compatriot Luca Amato.

He made his debut in the World Championship at the age of 16, already under the umbrella of the Italian Motorcycling Federation with Romano Fenati. And at the end of 2013 the transcendental call of the people of Valentino Rossi will come both part of the first batch of pilots of the VR46 Academy to move to Pesaro. These two are the Sky VR46 Racing Team’s first duo in their jump to Moto3.

“I remember the first time I met Valentino. We were having dinner… and he entered the Vale restaurant with our coach (Carlo Casabianca). I was very nervous to meet my idol. It was strange to be with my idol . in front of me and greet him. hand”, ctold CNN in January. Now he is one of the troops of Valentino Rossi and his partner Francesca together with his girlfriend Domizia Castagnini, a luxury clothing sales manager, who has been with him since 2015 and lives in Pesaro.

But the shadow of Fenati, then the apple of Uccio and Valentino’s eyes, was too long, a mistake that was corrected a few years later. Y The Aspar Team came to the aid of Gino Borsoi He brought it with him for the Alcireños’ new association with Mahindra. Those two years were key to the development of Bagnaia, who befriended Jorge Martín -the people of Aspar called them ‘Chip and Chop’-, who had a motorcycle that was out of control and from which they got all the juice that possible.

The first Ducati tried it at Aspar in 2016

In 2016, he promised Borsoi that if he won two races they would let him test his MotoGP Ducati (that year in the hands of Eugene Laverty) in the Cheste post-race test. And the people from Alciria followed suit, so the first nine laps on a MotoGP Ducati belonged to Aspar despite the fact that he had already lost them, returning to the refuge of the VR46 Racing Team for his Moto2 stage.

“I only saw Miller, Rabat and Lorenzo, who passed me on the last lap. Also with Marc Márquez that I overtook him because he rode slowly on the outside”, explained an elated Bagnaia that day.

They remember him in Alzira as a child “very polite, hard-working, grateful, professional and he kept stopping by the box to say hello,” they said.

In 2017 he was the best Moto2 rookie and in 2018 he won the world title, also in Sepang, with 8 wins and took the baton from another VR46 Academy, Franco Morbidelli, but unlike ‘Morbido’ he washe was the first champion inside the structure of Valentino Rossi, the Sky VR46. It could not be with any other brand than Ducati that he made his debut in MotoGP with Pramac tied even before becoming champion and with an old friend from the Spanish pre-world races Jack Miller.

Jumping into MotoGP with Pramac was complicated, he had to relearn how to ride after many rookie crashes and in his second year, the complicated 2020 due to Covid-19, he suffered a serious fracture of the right tibia in FP1 at Brno. But after recovering, he fell. first podium at Misano-1. At the time, Ducati senior officials had already planned to remove the Dovizioso-Petrucci duo to make room for Bagnaia-Miller.

2021 started on a podium -it was a recently visited test circuit- and in Jerez he took the lead which returned to Quartararo a GP later when he lost the wick until the holiday break where he took the opportunity to reflect. Although compared to this 2022 he is ‘only’ 70 points behind Quartararo six races from the end, he is in the middle of a comeback despite four victories in the last six Grands Prix finishing 26 points behind Frenchman.

On February 21, before the start of the 2022 campaign, Ducati management showed their full confidence in him by renewing him for two more years. And his campaign has almost been traced, ‘almost’ because compared to two zeros in 2021 he has signed at least five. And because this time the disadvantage reached 91 points against the leader Quartararo before the holiday break, where apart from his reflection he drove drunk back to his hotel after a party in Ibiza with the friend, he had a road trip and was arrested by the local police. His ‘mea culpa’ to the networks is exemplary. The ‘Go Free’ (Enjoy and be free) that was like a motto betrayed him at that time.

They don’t understand each other with that GP22 yet, they need to build a hybrid motorcycle with 2021 parts to start carburizing and understanding it. The rest is history, the most brutal comeback in the history of MotoGP with which Casey Stoner also collaborated, that he succeeded in the list of Ducati champions, and Valentino Rossi, who did not stop suggesting last-minute positives change since that distance. has earned him some success.