Are there still reasons to be skeptical about Pecco Bagnaia?
The Jerez Grand Prix ended a few minutes ago, the euphoria of parc fermé is waning and Guido Meda takes the opportunity to ask Valentino Rossi if, with this victory, Bagnaia has finally managed to convince even the last skeptics remained on your account. Rossi, perplexed, says he is interested in getting to know these sceptics, but Meda’s question is anything but trivial, because it reflects a feeling shared by many, both within the paddock and among the fans: despite the two world titles, Bagnaia is not universally recognized as a champion. The Jerez race, however, told us something else.
The green light came on a few seconds ago and Bagnaia, thanks to an excellent starting point, climbed from seventh to fourth place while pressing down on the tank to tackle the long straight that leads to turn 6. A few meters ahead, in second position, Jorge Martin moves to the right side of the track to cover himself from a possible attack by Marco Bezzecchi, third, who in turn seeks an even more internal trajectory without however sinking the blow. Just when Guido Meda underlines how it seems to him on commentary “out of reach” a possible attack of Bagnaia, the reigning world champion chooses a completely different line compared to the two riders preceding him.
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He widens to the left, delays braking, exaggerates, passes next to Bezzecchi making him look like a pensioner on a bicycle, avoids Martin by climbing the curb, brazen, aggressive, daring but still hopeless, he seems destined to go long. The brake lever turns into a nutcracker dealing with a shell that doesn’t want to break, Bagnaia grinds his teeth under his helmet and squeezes as hard as he can.
The shot from the helicopter crushes the motorbikes to the ground, the front wheel of his Ducati goes down, he should lie down and slide in the gravel but for the next forty-five minutes he will respond to laws other than those of physics. He comes back up, supports the Italian champion’s desire for power and allows him to close the corner perfectly on line, behind only Marc Marquez. “An overtaking that really gave me pleasure, it’s the best thing today” Bagnaia will say at the end of the race, taking up an iconic expression from Valentino Rossi.
The origin of the reluctance in defining Bagnaia as a champion is to be found inbreaking element brought by the Turin driver compared to the recent past of MotoGP. In fact, it was Valentino Rossi himself who changed the champion-driver paradigm, building an increasingly impressive entertainment framework around the twenty laps of the track. After him, anyone who wanted to fight for the title seemed forced to wear the role of the despot, of the champion endowed with dazzling talent but also with an exuberant spirit, capable of fueling his fame through rivalries experienced in a visceral way, crushing any opponent to then look back with a smile.
Bagnaia, on the contrary, tried to win by following his character: shy, reserved, less inclined to show off of the event compared to the age-old standards of Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez. The intertwining of his personality with the will to win, however, led him to take on his shoulders the most difficult task of all: winning by dispelling the myth of the champion as a thoroughbred horse, an absolute dominator capable of designing and developing his own character. through one or more strong rivalries that enhanced their stage power. He succeeded on the track, winning two consecutive world championships with an almost scientific method, with the air of a normal person doing a normal job, trying and trying again, slipping – even too much – struggling on Saturday, countering on Sunday, and yet in the relationship with the public he has never stopped paying for an ordinariness now considered distant from the spectacular world of MotoGP.
Even on the back podium, Bagnaia is certainly not the classic rider sborone.
With Bagnaia the fan-driver identification process was interrupted, replaced by an emotional gap, made even wider by the weight of the lack of comparison with Marc Marquez. If the Spanish champion had taken the MotoGP throne by playing the role of the regicide in a violent rivalry with Valentino Rossi, Bagnaia seemed to reach the top of the world championship going through the back door, lowering the difficulty like in a video game, taking advantage of the best bike against opponents of the same caliber. The alignment of Bagnaia’s rise with the darkest period of the Spanish champion – which began four years ago with the double accident in Jerez, culminating with the farewell to Honda due to the objective impossibility of bridging the technical gap in a short time with Ducati – has cultivated in the public a feeling of delegitimization towards the Turin champion, guilty of having taken the throne without the burden of overthrowing the last true elect.
Bagnaia’s shaky start to the season, with the sole victory in Qatar followed by the crash in Portugal and seventh place in Texas, was confirming the suspicions cultivated in the last two years: the return of Marc Marquez and, more generally, increasing the competitiveness of the championship – with the confirmation of Jorge Martin, Maverick Vinales finally fast with the Aprilia and the arrival of the young phenomenon Pedro Acosta – were enough to put the world champion in difficulty and push him away from the positions that count.
Until the Jerez Grand Prix. Here, ten laps from the end, Bagnaia is in the lead, Martin has fallen and is on the shoulders of the Turin champion a purple shadow looms increasingly swollen, dark, announcing a storm: it is the livery of the Team Gresini Ducati with which Marc Marquez has just recorded the best time of the day (1:37:873) just two tenths from the track record. Bagnaia responds immediately (1:37:816), but Marquez is like a screwdriver that turns and presses on the head of the screw, each lap getting closer, for Meda it is “inexorable”.
Five laps later the coupling is completed, after another record pass (1:37:655) the fumes from Marquez’s nostrils blow on the tail of Bagnaia’s bike. The chants of the Spanish fans cross the television, turns 8, 9, 10 and 11 form a sort of rectangle set right under the stands, Marquez prepares the shot and in the change of direction between 8 and 9 he quickly raises the bike, he moves to Bagnaia’s right and slips it. Pecco defends himself, resists, crosses the trajectory. Marquez slides the bike outside, keeps his hand on the gas and tries to close the line towards turn 10 but Bagnaia is already there, with the front wheel rubbing on the Spaniard’s right side who is forced to get up and slow down. The following lap the scenario repeats itself, this time Bagnaia is cleaner, comes out of 9th with more acceleration and leaves Marquez behind, where he will remain until the finish line. With a phenomenal 1:37:449 with three laps to go the number one seals the victory.
A victory whose specific weight is entirely contained in the exultation of the Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi, who takes the foreground of the Sky camera and turns to those on the other side while spelling out the “masterpiece” of his rider, of “world champion”, waving his arms with his index fingers raised and then suddenly turning and walking away with his fingers pointing to the sky. Valentino Rossi himself confessed to feeling indebted to Bagnaia for the emotions given in the race, then praising the race conduct of the driver produced by his Academy: “Pecco considers Marc one of his rivals for the title and we have seen his approach, which is to respond immediately to his overtaking. I think it’s very important, because then someone like Marc tends to eat you in the head. Today Pecco was perfect”.
A series of praise to which was also added that of Marc Marquezhappy to be competitive again and to have fought for the victory, so much so that he climbed the fence at the end of the race to go and celebrate face to face with his fans and then dance conspicuously once he got on the podium: “I tried, the first attempt was the good one but he defended very well, he has experience and confidence with this bike, he is a champion and he is the reference within the Ducati group”.
By accepting the duel with Marquez and emerging victorious, in Jerez Bagnaia finally tore away the veil that separated him from the general public, affirming his own value also through that of his defeated opponent, rrevealing himself as the champion he is, that he always has been, and suddenly reigniting the conversation about motorcycling in Italy. We will soon find out whether the rivalry with Marquez will be the backbone of the season, in the meantime Bagnaia, with the seat of the other official Ducati still free for 2025, was keen to point out that the number one is still stuck to his hull, and he intends to hold on to it.