Why MotoGP’s newest winner can be a menace in the coming races

Enea Bastianini’s maiden MotoGP victory will long live in the memory of those within his Gresini Racing team, not least that of team owner and principal Nadia Padovani.

The 2022 campaign marks Gresini’s first since 2014 where it has run as a truly independent team, having been used as Aprilia’s factory entrant since it returned to MotoGP in 2015. Towards the end of 2020 Fausto Gresini, the double 125cc world champion who founded the team, announced his squad would be cutting ties with Aprilia and moving forward on its own.

But the veteran Italian wouldn’t get to see his vision come to reality. Tragically in February of last year, Gresini died after a battle with COVID-19.

With his wife taking over the reins, she kept Gresini’s dream alive and pushed forward with its 2022 plans. The team signed a deal with Ducati to received 2021-spec bikes, with Bastianini coming onboard from Avintia alongside Moto2 graduate Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Gresini Racing’s history is one steeped in heart-breaking tragedies. In 2003, Japanese rider Daijiro Kato crashed during the opening round of the campaign at Suzuka and would suffer fatal injuries. And in 2011, Marco Simoncelli would lose his life in a crash on the second lap of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

But the Gresini team has also shown resilience in the wake of such heartache. Following Kato’s death, team-mate Sete Gibernau took his Honda to victory in the 2003 South African GP, while at Misano in 2012 – which had been renamed in Simoncelli’s honour that year – Alvaro Bautista took his Gresini-run RC212V to third on the podium.

Marco Simoncelli and Fausto Gresini both became legends of the MotoGP paddock before their tragic deaths

Photo by: Honda Racing

Bastianini owes a lot to the late Gresini. He made his grand prix debut with the team in Moto3 in 2014 and used his time there to mould himself into the rider that would go on to win the 2020 Moto2 world championship, score two podiums on a two-year old Ducati in his debut season and score Italy’s 254th premier class win last Sunday in Qatar.

“I dedicate this victory to Fausto, because he pushed a lot from the sky,” said Bastianini as he offered his first words as a MotoGP race winner in parc ferme. “It’s fantastic for all the team. I think we have cried, all the guys, and I’m very happy also for my family at home. I want to say thanks to everybody for this.”

"We always thought that if we could put him in the right conditions, he would be really someone that can fight for race victories, also in MotoGP" Paolo Ciabatti

Bastianini also had the backing of Ducati from an early age, with the marque’s sporting director Paolo Ciabatti telling Autosport last month: “We’ve followed Enea, Davide Tardozzi and myself, actually since he was really a young kid. And we always thought that Enea had an extremely big talent. Sometimes a bit not so consistent. Okay, so in those days in his career in Moto3, there was a little bit of ups and downs. But we always thought that if we could put him in the right conditions, he would be really someone that can fight for race victories, also in MotoGP.”

Ducati’s intuition paid off. But it was no mere gamble. While his form in Moto3 was certainly inconsistent (Bastianini scoring one win in 2015 and 2016 with Gresini, none in 2017 with Estrella Galicia 0,0 and one in 2018 with Leopard) Bastianini flourished when he stepped onto bigger machinery in Moto2 in 2019. Consistently scoring top 10s in the first half of that year, he made it to the podium at Brno before injury in a collision not of his making in Austria stunted his progress.

But the following year he won three times and seized the Moto2 title to earn a promotion to MotoGP with Avintia and Ducati.

Bastianini celebrates winning the 2020 Moto2 world title

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

From the off, his race craft was never in question. Though Misano is a familiar track to him, he scored two thirds in the San Marino and Emilia Romagna GPs coming from 12th and 16th on the grid. More often than not he turned poor qualifying results into strong Sunday showings, with a sixth at Austin coming from 16th on the grid, and an eighth in Valencia coming from 18th.

Qualifying form was the key weakness he had to address in 2022, and made it clear from the off that he had taken heed. He topped the Sepang test with an outright lap record, and in Qatar last Saturday he guided his 2021-spec Ducati to second on the grid for his first front row in MotoGP.

What would prove crucial to his victory charge was his late switch to a medium rear tyre instead of the soft he went to the grid with. The soft was giving him “pumping” problems and the medium offered more stability, but required a little bit of time to start working properly owing to the cool evening conditions.

“I was confident, but you don’t know,” Bastianini said when reflecting on his pre-race thoughts. “Pol [Espargaro] was incredible today, like Brad [Binder] who did a really good race. I think Honda, KTM and also Suzuki have done a really good step from last year and now we are all the riders so close, and the tyre is the key of MotoGP now.”

Eventually Bastianini’s choice came to him. When Honda’s Espargaro shot a second away of Binder in second on lap 13, Bastianini dispatched with the KTM at Turn 1 on the next tour. He proceeded to decimate Espargaro’s lead as the Honda rider’s soft rubber started to fade and launched his Ducati up the inside into Turn 1 at the start of lap 19 of 22. Bastianini admits the end of the race was a case of “go large”, with Binder hunting him down on the final lap and getting to within 0.346s on the run to the chequered flag.

Bastianini keeps clear of Binder to win the 2022 MotoGP opener

Photo by: Akhil Puthiyedath

There was nothing shocking about Bastianini’s win. Many had predicted him to do so at some stage in 2022. He has a fully-developed 2021 Ducati that won seven races last year and finished the championship runner-up in Francesco Bagnaia’s hands, and has had free reign in the pre-season to just spin laps.

His growth has also been evident since he stepped up to MotoGP and has continued to evolve in key areas into 2022.

“Honestly, I changed a lot from when I arrived in the world championship in 2014,” Bastianini added after becoming the first Gresini MotoGP race winner since Toni Elias in 2006. “Before I was so aggressive, now I worked a lot to be more calm, especially during the free practice because to be nervous in this sport is not the best choice. Also, my team is like me, I’m really confident to speak with all of my guys.”

"I haven’t a lot of pressure now because I’m not in the factory team. I think for the moment, the other riders - especially with the 2022 bike - have more pressure than me" Enea Bastianini

Picking a champion after the first race, particularly one as generally unrepresentative as Qatar, is a foolish endeavour. But Bastianini’s performance at Losail has convinced six-time world champion Marc Marquez that the Gresini rider will be a title threat in 2022.

“I believe that I see two guys, who were Bastianini and Pol Espargaro, that were fast and will be contenders for the championship,” Marquez said.

Perhaps a premature prediction, but Bastianini can certainly be a menace to the rest of the field in the coming races. Two new races for the Italian come up next: the Indonesia GP and the Argentine GP. Bastianini had never seen the Sepang International Circuit on a MotoGP bike before last month’s test and blitzed the lap record. The fact he simply has to go and ride the bike and not try any new parts means he can use the scant amount of practice time to focus on himself.

Then follows the US GP, where he stormed to sixth from 16th last year on a 2019-spec Ducati, Portugal – where he was ninth in both the Portuguese and Algarve GPs – in 2021 and the Spanish GP at Jerez, where he first felt quick on the GP21 in November’s test.

Bastianini congratulated by Ducati general manager Gigi Dall’Igna who hasn’t ruled out him getting new parts on his GP21

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

As the season progresses, Bastianini is under no illusion that at some point his 2021 bike will get out-developed by the factory machines. Ducati general manager Gigi Dall’Igna hasn’t ruled out the prospect of Bastianini getting new parts as the season goes on.

PLUS: How Ducati turned its feared MotoGP strength into a problem in Qatar

But for the time being, he isn’t focused on this. He knows he has one of the best bikes at the moment and is focusing fully on extracting the most out of it. That his performances may also lead him to a factory Ducati ride for 2023 is something that isn’t playing on his mind.

“We don’t know this, but for the moment the 21 bike is a really nice bike for me,” when asked about if his bike will get any new parts this year and whether he is thinking about a factory seat for next season. “When I tried it for the first time in Jerez last year I understood the potential of this bike. But I’m not in a factory team and I don’t know if some new parts will arrive from the '22 bike. But for the moment I have one of the best bikes and one of the best teams behind me.

“In my team I haven’t a lot of pressure now because I’m not in the factory team. I think for the moment, the other riders - especially with the 2022 bike - have more pressure than me. But it’s not one of my problems, the pressure.”

Bastianini’s Qatar GP win, then, was not only an emotional tribute to a legend of the MotoGP paddock, but the fulfilling of the promise that had caught Ducati’s eye so many years ago.

Across testing and the Qatar GP weekend, Bastianini – one of the few top Italian grand prix talents not emerging from Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Academy - showed the evolution he needed to coming into his sophomore campaign and now has been given the Marc Marquez nod of approval.

How the 24-year-old Italian fits into the title battle picture will largely depend on how quickly his 2021-spec Ducati becomes outdated. But for the early races of 2022 at least, ‘the Beast’ has most certainly been unleashed…

After a stunning start to the 2022 MotoGP, what else can Bastianini achieve?

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images