2023-10-18 14:46:41
He motorcycle world championship just landed on the precious Phillip Island circuita paradisiacal place close to Melbourne, a route idealized by the pilots and much loved by the thousand inhabitants of the paddock for its extraordinary position facing the sea. He Australian Grand Prix can mark, almost definitively, the path of the three world titles at stake, which has, for the moment, the leaders Spaniards Jaume Masiá (M3, Honda) y Pedro Acosta (M2, Kalex)next to the champion Italian ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia (MotoGP, Ducati)which has just taken the lead from Jorge Martín from Madrid (Ducati)which went to the ground in Mandalikawhen he was also very much in charge, as he did on Saturday, in the big race on Sunday.
185 points at stake
There are 185 points at stake between Saturdays and Sundays of Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Qatar and Valencia. The difference between Bagnia and Martín is, now, 18 points, but, halfway through the championship, it reached 69 points, which the driver from San Sebastián de los Reyes, leader of the private ‘satellite’ team Prima Pramac by Ducati, managed to clean up after winning the sprint race in Indonesia last Saturday, and narrowly take the lead. As little as that glory lasted, because the next day, Sunday, he crashed and allowed Bagnaia to win the race starting from 13th position on the grid, a feat that could not be seen from the 2006, with Marco Melandri in Türkiye.
During the last few days there has been a lot of noise about the possibility that the Ducati factory was seriously concerned about the fact that a private rider and a ‘satellite’ team won the world riders’ title (something that has not happened since 2001, when Valentino Rossi achieved it), unseating the official ‘team’, dethroning his own champion, ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia, and preventing the main sponsor of the Borgo Panigale factory, Lenovocould boast of such a conquest.
So much Paolo Ciabatti, Sports Director of Ducati Corselike, to a lesser extent, the engineer Giggi Dall’Igna, General Director of the Italian team, have raised a cry in the face of such suspicion. “This will be very hard, there are five races left, which will be exciting,” Dall’Igna’ has just declared, who praised the resurgence of Bagnaia “a true champion” and regretted “Martín’s haste and excessive enthusiasm on Sunday.” “What is happening in recent weeks demonstrates the uncertainty of a challenge that is totally focused on Ducati and that promises to remain exciting and totally sporty, clean. We are proud of all this.”
“It irritates me that they say that we don’t want Martín or Pramac to win. If we didn’t want them to win, we would give them the same material as Bagnaia, the same”
Sports Director of Ducati Corse
Ciabatti was much more forceful when expressing what the Italian firm thinks about such a challenge. “It irritates me, it irritates me very much, that it is said out there that Ducati does not want Martín and Pramac to win the World drivers’ title. For now, we have renewed, in Mandalika, the constructors’ title, on Saturday, thanks to Martín’s victory and we are tremendously happy about it.”
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“I repeat,” Ciabatti insisted, “that thought, that statement, irritates me because everyone knows that Martín rides the same motorcycle, I repeat, the same motorcycle as Bagnaia, including the new wings on the front suspension. What’s more, Pramac has seven factory engineers assigned to its team throughout the year. It is evident, I say, that if we saw it as dangerous or inopportune for Martín and Pramac to win the title, we would not give them the same bike, the same equipment and the possibility of success as Bagnaia.
Ciabatti has finished his presentation and defense of neutrality and, above all, sportsmanship, remembering that “at Ducati we have four riders under contract: Bagnaia, Bastianini, Martín and Zarco. And we pay the four of them to win, of course.”
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