Enea Bastianini

who to 2023: watch out for

There’s no guarantee » Ducati will have the best bike on the Motogp grid in 2023, but there’s a very good chance they will. If that’s the case then next year’s championship could be an in-house duel between factory Ducati team-mates Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini. Bagnaia has been in the factory squad since 2020, while Bastianini joins him for the first time, after spending his first two Motogp seasons riding for independent Ducati outfits. Last year Bastianini rode a second-hand Desmosedici GP21 and became Motogp’s big new star, winning four races to finish third overall behind champ Bagnaia and 2021 champ Fabio Quartararo. He had four big duels with Bagnaia, the result was a two-all draw.

So what will happen when Bastianini has full-factory support and the latest Desmosedici? The 24-year-old Italian is superlaidback and probably has more natural talent and flair than Bagnaia, so he’s very good at making magic passes and has already shown he’s happy to engage in full-frontal combat with his countryman.

Luca Marini

Yes, another Ducati » rider, but that’s Motogp at the moment… Luca Marini, Valentino Rossi’s younger halfbrother, came close to winning the 2020 Moto2 title, losing out by just a few points to Bastianini. He graduated to Motogp the following year on a two-year-old Desmosedici and was fast enough for Ducati to give him a GP21 for 2022, during which he got stronger and stronger.

At Misano he missed his first Motogp podium by just a second, at Phillip Island he finished less than a second behind the winner and he closed his second year in the class of kings by topping the post-season tests at Valencia. In other words, he’s ready.

I’ll be surprised if he’s not fighting for podiums in 2023.