Ducati-KTM-Ducati, i.e. Italy-Austria-Italy. The podium of the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix reflects the ‘Eurocentric’ trend of the current season, but has rewritten the history of the World Championship in its own way. In fact, for the first time since the championship of the premier class of two wheels has existed – 500 cc first and MotoGP today – no rider on a Japanese bike finished in the top three in the home race of Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki. A result that is the definitive testimony of how the Asian giants who for decades have unquestionably monopolized the world of two wheels are experiencing an unprecedented crisis of results. To give an idea of how epochal today’s result was, just think that in the last race at Motegi, three years ago, the Japanese bikes occupied seven of the top eight positions.
The only exception was Andrea Dovizioso’s Ducati, who finished third. This time, however, in the first race held in the land of the Rising Sun after the pandemic, the situation was completely reversed. Only two home bikes were classified in the top 11: the Honda of an extraordinary one Marc Marquezfourth, and the Yamaha of the world leader Quartararo, eighth. The eight-time world champion and the reigning champion are confirmed as the only lifelines for Tokyo and Iwata: without them the two most successful manufacturers of the contemporary MotoGP era would be even more forced into the embarrassing role of extras in a grid now dominated, in terms of performance, by Ducati, Aprilia and – usually more detached – KTM.
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