These days Jorge Martín and Pecco Bagnaia are settling a beautiful battle for the MotoGP crown. Both have known each other their entire lives, since they were fighting to become World Cup drivers as children. In their first steps into the competition, in Moto3, they strengthened ties and became friends, although in this sport, on the track, it is better to leave feelings aside. “I never imagined that we could be fighting together for the title,” acknowledges the 25-year-old from Madrid.
“When I arrived, he already had experience and always beat me, so I tried to learn a lot from him,” he adds. Now, in the midst of a battle for a dream, it is the Spaniard who has once again demonstrated his remarkable development on the Ducati to give another blow to his former teammate with a pole position record and his fifth consecutive victory at sprint -the seventh of the year- in the Thai GP. The current world champion will start sixth on the grid this Sunday (9:00 a.m., DAZN) and dropped nine points in the table after finishing seventh in the short race this Saturday. Now, 18 points separate both with 136 at stake.
This “strange” couple, as Bagnaia himself has defined it, coincided in 2015 and 2016 under the umbrella of Team Aspar. “For me it is super nice to see Pecco and Jorge fighting in MotoGP. Also to Marco [Bezzecchi] and Aleix [Espargaró]. We are the seed of all this and I love it,” Jorge Martínez Aspar, former driver and head of the team where both added their first World Cup podium, celebrates in conversation with EL PAÍS. “They are still the same kids I had by my side six years ago,” he says. In the small category, the Spaniard and the Italian shared a bunk in the team truck. They spent the afternoons playing the video game console, imagining themselves in the middle of a fight for glory, the same one they are now fighting in the real world. “Our relationship is based on respect, and we both know perfectly well each other’s potential, so there will always be a fair fight between us,” says number one.
That potential translates into one of the most exciting World Cup finals in recent times. With four grand prix remaining, they are less than one race away. Both have the same technical package, although one sports the official Ducati red and the other the purple and white of one of the satellite teams. “Jorge is in spectacular shape. We always told him that he would have everything he would need to win. Salary, motorcycle, all the conditions for him are as if he were a driver for the official team,” Paolo Ciabatti, sports director of the Bologna brand, emphasizes to this newspaper. The manufacturer’s policy, in his own words, is “let the best win.”
In it paddock, everyone agrees that Martín is the fastest driver in the category right now, but Bagnaia has more experience under his belt and a title that is still very fresh in his memory. “I see Jorge faster, he is in his best moment, but Pecco is knowing how to hold on, fishing even in bad moments,” says Aspar. Those who know them best say that they are both similar, especially in their personal treatment. “Pecco is a pilot and a very educated, technical and informed person. He wants to know everything, and he is calm, he is not aggressive. Martín is much more impulsive. Of course, he has been polishing himself and is becoming more and more mature,” analyzes their mentor. “Jorge is more explosive and has hot blood, he can pilot the bike even when there are problems. Pecco wants everything under control, to have the bike tailored to him, to feel perfect for his riding style. That is the biggest difference between the two,” Ciabatti elaborates.
More mental issue than technical
Carlos Checa, former driver and television commentator, emphasizes that the two candidates are capable of getting the most out of the best bike on the grid. “Maybe they take one or two tenths off each other, and that in one lap is not appreciated by the human eye. Only in telemetry can you see that,” he points out. Precisely, due to the transparency policy between Ducati riders, both rivals can study their data at the end of each session and know, instantly, where they are losing ground. “For me, at this point, it is no longer a technical issue, but a mental one, and I think Jorge has less pressure and more advantage, he arrives fresher.”
Martín exudes confidence despite having taken two important blows in the last grand prix. In the Indonesian GP he fell when he was leading by a large margin and saw how Bagnaia took advantage of his mistake and added his sixth victory of the year on Sunday to regain the lead of the competition, which lasted just 24 hours for the Spaniard. In Australia last week, a strategic error caused him to fall from first to fifth place in the last lap, with the Italian fishing again with a second place. “Maybe it was overconfidence,” Aspar interprets about the Madrid native’s latest mistakes. In the same way, Ciabatti remembers the importance of the Italian champion’s accident in Barcelona, which bordered on tragedy when he was run over by Brad Binder’s KTM: “That changed the script of the season. An accident like this affects you on a personal and psychological level.”
Bagnaia has come out of the slump when he needed it most and coinciding with Martín’s first failures this season. “Now they have equalized forces for this final stretch, and it will be very exciting,” says Checa. The sprint on Saturday have been the best asset of the Madrid native, who has accumulated seven wins in the modality released this year in addition to three victories on Sundays. The Turin native, on the other hand, always goes from strength to strength on the weekends and usually gets the most out of long races, where he has already accumulated six victories. The number one has also won four sprintsand its biggest burden has been the five zeros on Sunday.
Now there are four finals left, and the key will be to minimize errors. “This is a race of successes. What they cannot afford is to go out and not lose. You always have to go out to win, and I speak thinking about the World Cup. That, perhaps, implies knowing that your limit one day is to be fourth,” says Checa. “Regularity will prevail,” Aspar agrees. At Ducati, as a factory, they watch the fight delighted, and they stick out their chests because they know that in the end it will be one of their riders who wins the World Championship. “There are three Ducati riders in the first three positions. If we think about where we were a few years ago, this is a wonder. For us, the most important thing is that Pecco, Jorge and Marco [Bezzecchi] They are pilots who respect each other. They do whatever it takes to win, but never anything wrong or unsportsmanlike. We want that, for the best to win with the image that Ducati wants to project through the championship” concludes Ciabatti.
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