Francesco Bagnaia, winner of the Japanese Grand Prix, has cautioned fans of MotoGP not to anticipate significant changes in the current situation between now and the final race of the season at Valencia. The defending champion thinks the top four competitors in the championship standings will be Jorge Martin of Pramac Ducati, Bagnaia, his factory Ducati teammate Enea Bastianini, and Marc Marquez of Gresini Ducati. These four riders dominated the 24-lap race at Motegi on Sunday.
After observing the significant distance between the top four riders and the next-best rider, Franco Morbidelli, at the end of the 24-lap Grand Prix, the double world champion made his remarks. The top four were covered in less than five seconds, although Bastianini in fourth position and Morbidelli in fifth distanced themselves by 13.6 seconds. Bagnaia was speaking of the top four finishers in the race, but it’s possible that he was also talking to Pedro Acosta of KTM when he predicted who would lead the field in the next four rounds.
If you look at the gap between the first four and fifth, it’s amazing, said the Italian racer, who closed his points deficit to Martin from 21 to 10 in the Japan Grand Prix. The first four riders had amazing pace, and I think it will be like this until Valencia. The pace was incredible; I think we were much faster than the last dry Grand Prix at Motegi two years ago, he added.
Acosta, a 20-year-old rookie, qualified on the pole in Japan and continued his recent upward trend with his most competitive weekend of the season, despite his distant sixth-place finish in the points race. The Spaniard did, however, crash out of both races after pushing himself too far to outrun the Ducatis. The margins are as narrow as ever in this quintet. It will take flawless weekends, similar to the ones Bagnaia provided in Japan, to gain an advantage at any particular Grand Prix.
This weekend started well, and we have to use it as our model for the coming ones. We need to follow what we did this weekend, work in a perfect way, and always try to do the best possible job in the race. We were so smooth and good. I want to keep the championship! I have to try and recover points every time, but without taking risks. We have to believe and never give up, Bagnaia insisted.
The Spanish racer Marquez expressed his view on how close the competition is amongst the leading handful of riders. If we do everything right and we are perfect, we can stay with the guys at the front. But we don’t have the capacity to catch them when they get away from us, said Marquez.
Trying to do it in the Grand Prix, I went long at Turn 1. Then I just started to manage Enea, who scares me a lot in the last laps! Let’s see if we can get back to qualifying well. We haven’t done it since Aragon, and when you get out on the front row, it changes the whole picture, the 31-year-old racer added.
With just three rounds to go, the gap between the two top racers stands at just 10 points, with Spaniard Martin still at the top of the leaderboard. Bastianini is third in the standings, just ahead of Marquez. The next race will be held at the Philip Island Circuit in Australia from 18 October to 20 October.
