If any of Ducati’s top management are alive at the end of the season, it will be a miracle. For two consecutive races, factory rider and championship hopeful Pecco Bagnaia and Gresini rider Enea Bastianini have indulged in a last lap tussle that could so easily have ended in disaster for one or both of them. The stress levels in the factory pit must have been off the scale.
Maybe if it had happened six races ago, it wouldn’t have been so nerve-wracking. At that point, Bagnaia was 90 points adrift of championship leader Fabio Quartararo and the Yamaha rider was looking supremely comfortable not only at the head of the table but at the sharp end of the races.
Then, it all turned around as Bagnaia won four races on the trot and 120 points in the last five races, compared to Quartararo’s two DNFs and only 39 points.
Had Bagnaia won in Aragon, the points difference between the two would have been five! As it is, with Bastianini’s last lap lunge, the gap is ten points between first and second in the championship. Even better, Aleix Espargaro is only a further seven points behind Bagnaia. What was looking like a piece of cake for Quartararo is now a free-for-all between three riders.
The relative positions of Espargaro and Bastianini demonstrate the importance of consistency. Bastianini has won an incredible four races so far this year but sits 48 points off the top of the table in fourth spot. Espargaro has only one win but lots of podiums while Bastianini has been up and down like a yo-yo.
Consistency has also been Quartararo’s strong point but, in recent races, he’s been looking a little desperate. That was certainly the case in Aragon as he had to throw caution to the wind in order to stay at the sharp end and have a chance to fight for a podium, if not a win. He was where he was in turn four because of his qualifying position and that was his undoing. Had he qualified on the front row, Marquez would have affected someone else’s race, not Quartararo’s.
As Keith Heuwen, former GP rider talking on the crash.net website podcast, said: “I think to be honest, this kind of first lap incident was always going to happen to Quartararo sooner or later just because of the situation he’s in with that bike, and not being able to overtake.
“If he doesn’t qualify on the front row, he has no choice but to do these kind of flat-out first laps. Quartararo can’t wait until the back straight to pick people off, because of the top speed problem, so he’s got to go for it in the corners. And the start is the best chance to do that.
“But you can’t keep doing that race in, race out, at this level without an incident happening eventually. I just think Quartararo paid the price for having to get 110% out of that Yamaha all the time.”
The main problem for Quartararo now is that the next couple of races, at Motegi and Thailand, play to the Ducati’s strengths and, even if Quartararo can get in amongst the red army, he’ll be stuck with the same problem as before: an overheating front tyre and no way of attacking.
Of course, he has, in the past, got out front somehow and simply disappeared off into the distance but the psychological effect of watching his championship lead evaporate against a seemingly impregnable and numerous foe cannot be dismissed. He knows he’s fighting for his life and there’s not much he can do about it, especially with no wingman to cover his back. Bagnaia has seven wingmen!
Not that that matters too much if that wingman is Bastianini. I’ll admit I fully expected the Gresini rider to loyally sit behind Bagnaia, especially as any move would compromise his next year’s team and teammate’s championship, let alone risk-taking Bagnaia out completely as nearly happened in Misano, but it appears that, at present, there are no Ducati team orders: it’s a free-for-all. Of course, Bastianini has a mathematical chance of winning the championship but what he can’t do is skittle Bagnaia out of a race in his efforts to overtake which, as we have seen this year, isn’t that easy.
That doesn’t mean he’s not going to go for it while he has a chance of winning the title. Only once it becomes mathematically impossible or, at least, unlikely, will Bastianini help Bagnaia, as long as Bagnaia is still in the hunt. He too has not been perfect this year, despite the six victories. As we have seen, all it takes is one fall and everything is turned on its head.
(As an interesting aside, it was at the Aragon race last year that Bagnaia won his first race as a factory Ducati rider. From Aragon last year to Aragon this year have been 20 races and Bagnaia has won 10 of them!)
Until that last lap, the main talking point, of course, was Marc Marquez. Not only was he returning to racing after his operation, but his first (and only) lap was…eventful, to say the least.
What sickened me most was that, almost immediately, the Marquez haters crawled out of their smelly, Britney Spears-postered bedrooms in their mom’s house and started crying foul. Morons.
The first incident, which sadly overshadowed a meteoric start by Marquez as he rocketed from 13th on the grid to sixth, took out Quartararo. Marquez simply lost the back end as he accelerated out of the fourth corner and his natural reaction was to back off the throttle. Unfortunately, Quartararo was right behind him and couldn’t avoid clattering into the back of Marquez and suffered a really nasty-looking fall, chased and run over by his own bike. To the relief of all, he was all right but his race was over before it had even started.
Then, three corners later, Marquez’ ride height device briefly locked the back wheel, again when exiting a corner. This time it was Nakagami who fell foul in a bizarre accident that saw the Japanese rider and his bike sliding down the middle of the track, to be miraculously missed by the whole of the chasing pack. Marquez made it back to the pits but his race was run.
Neither accident was the result of bad riding on the part of Marquez: they were completely circumstantial and had nothing to do with aggression but to hear the Marquez haters bleating you’d think he’d pulled out a gun and shot the two riders. Of course, it was devastating for Quartararo’s championship but that’s racing.
Heuwen was also critical of the hysteria surrounding the incidents:
“When you’ve got a non-racing tubby journo behind his keyboard trying to emulate a 5 times, 6 times 7 times or in this case 8 times world champion, it just gets right up my nose!
“…there was one person speculating whether he did it on purpose! I mean, what goes on in these people’s heads? I’ve got no clue at all.”
What the second incident did do, of course, was break up the pack and, after it had all shaken out, it was Bagnaia in the lead. What was even better for South African fans was that Brad Binder was now in third after his own fast start that ensured he was ahead of all the carnage behind him. There he stayed for a long, long time, unable to match the pace of Bagnaia and Bastianini but resisting the attentions of Espargaro. A podium looked to be on the cards for Binder before Espargaro took it away from him with two laps left to run. Heartbreaking for Binder but it was nevertheless his best race for some time and shows what he can do if only he can qualify better.
Bastianini made his move on the last lap, the first last lap overtake since….Aragon last year! If overtaking is difficult in MotoGP this year, then someone forgot to tell the riders at Aragon!
All of a sudden, the championship has gone from a Quartararo Sunday stroll to the title, to a dog fight with five races left to run. The next two races might be Ducati territory but you can’t rule out Quartararo springing a surprise. He’s very much like Jorge Lorenzo: give him a clear track and the opportunity to do his own thing and he just disappears. The problem is finding that clear track.
Talking of Yamaha, Cal Crutchlow showed what a loss to the MotoGP grid he is as he returned to replace retired Andrea Dovizioso in the RNF Yamaha team. Despite not racing for a year, Crutchlow was able to run on the outskirts of the top ten before finishing 14th and taking two championship points. Not bad for a rusty old man on a bike that no-one but Quartararo can win on.
Four races in the next five weeks means a huge workload for everyone in the paddock. As it is, there will be no Friday morning running for any of the teams in Japan as the freight won’t arrive in time. All that does is make things even juicier for us, the fans, as we contemplate the prospect of a scintillating run to the championship flag in Valencia in November.
Forget what’s happened so far: the championship starts now.
