Bagnaia-Bastianini: a delicate return to Mandalika
For the first time since the terrifying fall of Francesco Bagnaia in Barcelona, the reigning world champion ed Enea Bastianinireturning from a long injury suffered in Spain, found themselves on the track as Ducati teammates in the last Indonesian GP. The collaboration between the two, however, did not seem particularly advantageous for the official Borgo Panigale team, and in particular for ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia. The latter, in an attempt to get back into the standings on Jorge Martin (a mission then accomplished on Sunday due to the great comeback of the #1 and the simultaneous crash of the Spanish driver) found himself behind Bastianini at the end of practice, then finishing in 13th position in qualifying also as a result of the passage in Q2 of ‘Beast’.
No team order
As if that wasn’t enough, the situation worsened in the Sprint on Saturday, with Bastianini who finished in 7th place just ahead of his teammate. For this reason, Bagnaia lost the championship lead to Martin, which was then regained the following day due to the aforementioned events on Sunday. In this way, at Ducati no type of team order occurredunlike what happened in 2017when Jorge Lorenzo allowed his then teammate Andrea Dovizioso to keep open the fight for the title with Marc Marquez, which the latter later won.
Ciabatti’s message
Martin’s misstep thus allowed Bagnaia not only to return to the top of the standings with 18 points ahead of the Pramac rider (Ducati satellite team), but also to gain a victory that Spielberg had been missing. However, although team orders are no longer foreseen in Ducati (as well as in other teams of the Borgo Panigale family such as Pramac and Mooney VR46), a message to Bastianini still came from Paolo CiabattiDucati Sports Director: “Thirteenth position on the grid for Pecco was not ideal – he has declared – especially in the Sprint, because the chances of overtaking were very limited given that the clean line was very narrow. There will be no team order for Pecco, Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi because everyone has a chance to win the world title, but when it comes to two Lenovo teammates for 7th and 8th place in the Sprint Race, there’s little point in pushing it any further. This is my personal opinion. It’s not a question of team order. If a driver is leader of the championship and the other driver of the team no longer has the possibility to do anything because he has been injured twice, then the common sense should intervene“.
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