Bagnaia ends Ducati’s drought
The finale to the 2022 Motogp season ended largely as predicted, for all of the championship’s best efforts to hype up
‘the decider’ between Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo at Valencia.
Ducati star Bagnaia, despite five DNFS and a 91-point disadvantage as late into the season as the German Grand Prix in June, had everything in his favour to secure the title in Spain. He led outgoing champion Quartararo by 23 points and needed only to finish 14th, regardless of where the Yamaha rider was, to take the crown.
Still, qualifying left the door cracked open for something to happen. Quartararo was fourth, Bagnaia eighth. The Frenchman had the best race pace in practice, but needed to lead to make that work; the
Italian just had to be sensible, but has been prone to major errors in 2022.
Quartararo didn’t get the start he needed, instead getting passed by Bagnaia into
Turn 1 before instantly retaliating for fifth. The pair would come to blows when Bagnaia’s team-mate Jack Miller steamed up the inside of Quartararo at Turn 2 on lap two of 27, the Australian – who would crash out of third later on in his final
Ducati outing – opening the door for the championship leader to pick off the Yamaha.
But contact led to a wing on the right of Bagnaia’s Ducati detaching. He later admitted that his race became “a nightmare” from that point as his pace dropped off and he was forced to go on the defence.
A brief duel across lap two gave way to Quartararo making a definitive move on
Bagnaia at Turn 6 on the fourth tour.
The pair wouldn’t see each other again until they embraced on the runoff area of Turn 1 after the chequered flag, but for now Quartararo set off to bridge a
1.7s gap to the quartet ahead.
That gap did come down, with a crash for Marc Marquez on lap 10 at Turn 8 removing one obstacle from Quartararo’s path.
But KTM’S Brad Binder was easing his way through the field from seventh and picked off Quartararo on lap 18. By now, Miller had fallen out of contention and Bagnaia was being shuffled down to the outer reaches of the top 10. Quartararo was on the limit the whole race as the hotter-than-expected conditions on race day made his hard front-tyre option too soft for his needs.
As a result, he later admitted, he had no chance to win the race, and therefore the championship, while Bagnaia ended up ninth with the sensible ride he required to end Ducati’s 15-year wait for its second Motogp championship. That Bagnaia is also the first Italian since Valentino Rossi to be crowned champion held added significance, given Bagnaia’s ascent to the top of the world came via Rossi’s VR46 Academy.
As the celebrations for Bagnaia’s championship bled into the post-race press conference, there was a bittersweet feeling emanating from Suzuki.
Alex Rins perfectly launched from fifth to first on the opening lap, and led the field through to the chequered flag in one of his finest displays to end the season with one final victory for Suzuki as it officially bows out of Motogp – maybe for good this time.
Rins had fought the tears on the grid, and his performance simply brought more emotion as one of the paddock’s best teams scored yet another of those results that make Suzuki’s decision to pull the plug on the project all the more baffling.
Second for Binder gave cause for optimism for KTM, with Miller and Honda’s Pol Espargaro both joining the Austrian marque for 2023, while third for Jorge Martin following pole signalled another missed opportunity for the Pramac Ducati team.
A struggle to eighth position was enough for Gresini Ducati rider Enea Bastianini to take third in the points over Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, who was left distraught by an engine issue forcing him into retirement early on in the race.
With both Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro crashing their Hondas, the magnitude of the marque’s job ahead was laid bare as it was consigned to last place in the constructors’ table.
That is true of the rest of the field, which heads into the winter with the task of trying to dethrone a mighty Ducati juggernaut that, helmed by Bagnaia, managed the biggest overturning of a points deficit in grand prix history to become champions of the world.