Opponents in disarmament
“We will do better in Austria, the last tracks were not favorable to our bike”. As Peter Acosta on the eve of the Red Bull Ring he expressed confidence ahead of the event in Styria, but the rookie on the Tech3 team only hit the headlines in FP1 following an off-track excursion and two crashes, the second of which was dramatic, but fortunately without consequences. Acosta today did not go beyond 13th place in the final standings, a personal Caporetto for the Spaniard that joins that of the RC-16s on the track in general. The first, that of Brad Binder, finished in fifth place, almost 19 seconds behind Francesco Bagnaia, an eternity.
Not only that: Binder’s KTM also finished behind the 2023 Ducati of Marc Márquez. The latter is an unrepeatable champion as demonstrated by today’s comeback made necessary by a problem with the brake lever at the start (the Gresini rider then ‘hooked up’ with the blameless Franco Morbidelli and both essentially started the race with a long lap penalty), but moving on to the next Ducati GP23, that of Marco Bezzecchi (as always at ease in Austria), we note that there are less than three seconds between Binder and the VR46 rider at the checkered flag.
In one year Ducati has progressed to the point of putting an eternity between the GP-24s of Bagnaia, Martin and Bastianini and the first of the opponents, which often and willingly also finishes behind one or more Ducatis from the previous year. The Borgo Panigale company has dropped a poker ‘in the face’ of the KTM top brass at the Red Bull Ring and if a year ago Pit Beirer declared that 2024 was the year of KTM’s assault on the title against Ducati, now the prospects towards 2025 cannot but be less aggressive and ambitious in light of the superiority demonstrated by Ducati.
The Borgo Panigale company is undoubtedly also ‘benefiting’ from a duel that pushes two great champions to become something more because forced to take many risks to try to get the better of his opponent. In 2021, Jorge Martin won his first career MotoGP race in Austria, beating Francesco Bagnaia to the punch in his quest for his first win in the premier class. This weekend, the two-time world champion showed up in Austria declaring that he wanted the world crown back and kept his promises by scoring a double that is worth the category throne again with a five-point advantage over Martin. Now the duel between the two will move to Aragon, where in 2021 Bagnaia won his first MotoGP race, getting the better of Marc Marquez, who today must settle for the Ducati GP23 while waiting to challenge Bagnaia on equal terms in the next two years.
#Austrian #Analysis #Ducati #Poker #Face #KTM #Managers
