Last November, at the conclusion of the Jerez tests, Pecco Bagnaia frightened the competition with his first opinion on the Desmosedici GP22: “Ducati has managed to improve a bike that was already perfect”. Thrilling words for those who in the last remnant of 2021 had seen themselves “beaten” by the Reds, who had won four of the last six races, complete with a hat-trick in the hated Valencia.
If you look at the statistics of this start of the season, the numbers don’t seem so different: Ducati has won three of the six races so far. Just like there are three pole positions, without forgetting that he is the only manufacturer to have always placed at least one driver on the front row and one on the podium.
Numbers that would suggest an absolute domination, even if in reality this is not the case at all. In fact, two of the three victories came with the “wrong” bike, the old GP21 managed by Gresini Racing and entrusted to an Enea Bastianini who showed great maturation in his second year in MotoGP.
To see the GP22 at the level at which Gigi Dall’Igna and Bagnaia himself expected it instead had to return to Jerez and about five months had to pass compared to those words spoken by the Piedmontese rider, which however gave the sensation yesterday to have become reality.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The start of the 2022 season was troubled to say the least for the vice-world champion, who was struggling to find the feeling to ride the GP22 in his own way and also made a few mistakes too many, such as the crash in the inaugural race in Qatar. and the one in Portimao’s Q1, which forced him to start from the back of the grid with a sore shoulder.
The former Moto2 world champion was a bit stuck trying to make the new bike as similar as possible to the one that made him sparks last year. The turning point came, however, when he realized that it was not possible and that it would be more productive to try to adapt his driving to the needs of the GP22. Some first glimpses had already been seen in the Portimao race, masked by the starting position, but in Jerez it was clear that something has changed.
“This is a bike that needs to be ridden differently and it took me a while to understand that. The moment we stopped trying to adapt it, we started to improve. It should be ridden much gentler on the gas than before. but on the guided tracks it performs a lot because it is really agile and closes the lines really well, so it’s a step forward “, explained Pecco after signing a sensational Gran Chelem, then pole position, victory, fastest lap and all laps in command. of the race.
Over the course of the weekend, among other things, he had already given some other tips in this sense, explaining that, in addition to the engine, it is also the aerodynamics of the GP22 that require a different approach: “In the straight braking phase it seems that the GP21 is still a little better, perhaps because it also had a thicker fairing, which braked more aerodynamically. The new fairing, however, is helping us a lot in the distance because, being smaller, we are able to enter the corners much stronger. something that on a track like this helps me to close the lines much more “.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
All on a track that seems designed to accommodate the characteristics of Yamaha and Fabio Quartararo, who had just returned from four pole positions and two victories in the last three years (in 2020 there were two races on this track). Successes that could have been three if last year he hadn’t been hit by a compartment syndrome problem when he was firmly in command, thus serving Ducati a double on a silver platter.
And it is precisely in this that we have seen the leap between the GP21 and the GP22. There was no confrontation last year until “El Diablo” was physically in place. This year, however, Bagnaia was able to give him over four tenths of a second in qualifying, crushing the track record. In the race then the Yamaha rider was only able to look at the tail of the Red for the 25 laps scheduled, without even being able to try to sketch an attack attempt.
A sort of replay of what had already been seen in the first race at Misano last year, when Bagnaia was already in his moment of grace, but very far from Quartararo in the World Championship. Thanks also to a start to the season that did not have “masters”, today the gap is only 33 points and there are still 15 races on the horizon. If Jerez was not just a flash in the pan, then, the margin to make a season that started far below expectations triumphant is still all there. In two weeks, at Le Mans, another theoretically Yamaha track, we will begin to get the first answers.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Dorna
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