After an endless chase over a very strong Jorge Martin in the MotoGP revalidation at Misano, Enea Bastianini pulled out all the stops on the final lap to win the Emilia Romagna GP. The Rimini native, in front of friends and family, searched and searched for a gap that the Spaniard wouldn’t give him, so he created one for himself in the fourth corner of the circuit, forcing the championship leader to lift the bike and go off the line. He couldn’t keep the bike on the track either, although he rode at will to victory to the delight of the stands. Despite the fuss and his obvious anger at a borderline action, including a finger pointing at him when crossing the finish line in second place, the Madrid native knew how to slow down and see the bigger picture. He emerges from Italy with a 24-point lead over Pecco Bagnaia, who fell in the final stretch of the race when he was riding in a podium position.
Martín put the rest of the field on the ropes with his frenetic pace in the early stages. Despite not being able to consolidate a new overtake on Bagnaia in the first corner, after the start, he was very aggressive to pass him on the fourth lap and escape. Shortly afterwards, the defending champion was overtaken by Bastianini, his teammate in the official Ducati garage. While the world champion was falling, the Beast He was forging his assault on victory. The Spaniard held out at a commendable pace for 23 laps, and closed all doors when his opponent came upon him in the final laps. A specialist in going from less to more, the Italian admitted that he threw himself into the fight to secure victory.
“When it’s the last lap and you’re at home, you’re more motivated to do something special,” said the winner. “Today it was impossible to overtake Jorge. And it was a bit like that, but a good overtake, all in all. I understand that he’s not happy, but he also closed me off a lot. I did my line and was able to take the line,” he added. The Madrid native regretted that the action was beyond the limit. “It was a good race, very hard, but what I think now is the same. I apologize for my gesture, although I think the same about the overtaking. After leading so many laps, being thrown off the track is not what you expect,” he commented with resignation.
Bagnaia’s mistake six laps from the end, when he was trying to make a comeback and forced himself too much, was the first twist in a race with a fast pace and few overtakings. He lost the front end and the possibility of regaining the championship lead, a moral blow in the opposite direction to the events two weeks ago on the same stage. The number one blamed the tyres for his poor performance and subsequent fall. “They have asked me for forgiveness, but it is not normal,” he said of the Michelin technicians. “We have lost points again for something that is beyond our control,” he concluded.
Marc Márquez, far behind the leaders of Ducati this weekend, the constructors’ champion with six rounds to go, inherited the podium from his next teammate after taking advantage of several falls to climb from seventh to third place.
KTM mainstays Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta’s crashes paved the way for him. Bagnaia’s uncharacteristic slip allowed him to string together his third consecutive podium, a feat he had not achieved since 2019, the year of his sixth and last title in the premier class. “This podium has been a gift, because the rest were stronger. We have to maintain that concentration and mentality, because anything can happen in Asia,” summed up the Catalan.
The MotoGP World Championship is entering its final frenzy with everything at stake, and next week the riders will meet in Indonesia for the first round of the Asian tour. There are six races left in eight weeks to decide who will win the title in 2024, and everything points to the battle stretching once again to Valencia.
