Why the new MotoGP world champion has a stronger character than it seems

The courage shown by Francesco Bagnaia in scrapping the latest version of the engine that Ducati developed for 2022 shows the personality of the new MotoGP world champion, someone who prefers to keep a lower profile than his predecessors on the throne.

At 25 years of age, Francesco Bagnaia does not come across as a guy who feels the need to make a lot of noise, although he is no less effective for that. That's clearer now with the world championship sewn up, the first for Ducati in 15 years and the second in the company's history, after Casey Stoner won in 2007. The Italian is the third most popular rider on the grid according to the survey conducted jointly by MotoGP and Motorsport Network, from a sample of more than 100,000 people, in which he appears behind Fabio Quartararo and Marc Marquez.

In sporting terms, the recovery of #63 throughout the course of the 2022 season is the perfect metaphor of the character of the protagonist; a theoretical candidate to fight for everything that went unnoticed for three quarters of the championship, until he grew in strength at the decisive moment to finish the job after he overturned a 91-point deficit after the German GP to seal the title by 17 come the Valencia finale.

PLUS: Why Bagnaia's MotoGP title is as worthy as Stoner's Ducati breakthrough

However, this discreet approach has nothing to do with the tremendous potential hidden inside. Although he is not one predisposed to tooting his own horn in public, that's not to his detriment on the road, and his way of expressing himself is better interpreted with deeds than with words. In his race for the crown, Bagnaia made a series of decisions that highlight his self-confidence and self-assurance, which are probably two of his main values, apart from the obvious riding talent he displays.

To find the most significant example of this, it is worth going back 10 months to the first test of the year at Sepang. There, the Ducati rider stood up in front of technical guru and Ducati general manager Gigi Dall'Igna to tell him that the engine he had been developing for months with his engineering team, and which until then seemed perfect ("this bike is ready to race" Bagnaia said after the November tests in Jerez) suddenly stopped convincing him.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

The main gripe was in the first part of the power delivery, which was too aggressive and not to Bagnaia's liking compared to the 2021 version, with which he had competed for the title against Fabio Quartararo. That detail underlines the personality of Bagnaia, even more so if we take into account that Dall'Igna holds all the cards in matters concerning the Borgo Panigale brand. At this point it is worth recalling the disagreements between the engineer and Andrea Dovizioso, when the Forli native was spearheading the red bike project before Ducati opened the exit door for him in 2020.

"It wasn't easy to tell Gigi that it wasn't going well. But he's very smart, and let's not forget that he also wants to win. The previous year's bike [2021] was going better, but it was too late. That's why we had to find a solution, hence the hybrid engine we have," explains Bagnaia in a conversation with Autosport. "It was a complicated moment because I was the one who said that the engine had to be changed. But I really liked the reaction of Gigi, who started to work in that direction," continues the current world champion. With that new specification of Ducati V4 a blend of the 2021 model and some of the 2022 model, Bagnaia was able to cut 91 points from Quartararo to achieve the biggest turnaround in results in MotoGP history.

"To have gone out with the bike that won the last races of 2021 would have been better, but I don't know if I would have been able to win so much and so often" Francesco Bagnaia

"When Pecco told Gigi that he preferred the previous engine he had all the credibility to do that. He earned that right because of how he finished the previous season (2021)," opined Paolo Ciabatti, Ducati's sporting director.

To comply with the regulations, in his position on the other side of the official workshop of the Bolognese manufacturer, Jack Miller also had to compete with the Bagnaia-inspired hybrid engine. Pramac duo Jorge Martin and Johann Zarco, along with VR46's Luca Marini, stayed with the unit considered newer. In turn, Enea Bastianini raced with the 2021 prototype, which was already at its peak of development, an extreme that explains the immediate performance of the Beast, winner of two of the first four stops on the calendar.

Bastianini's early success on the old engine contrasted with the fortunes of the five who raced with those two versions of the 2022 Desmosedici. Although theoretically more evolved, the 2022 powerplant did not win until the sixth race, when Bagnaia opened his account at the Spanish GP.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

"The engine we chose needed time before it was properly configured. And that effort you put into calibrating it well is time that you don't dedicate to going as fast as you can," concedes Cristian Gabarrini, Bagnaia's track engineer, when asked directly about the growth process of that GP22.

That Spanish Grand Prix began to give a glimpse of the possibilities of that hybrid Ducati, and at the same time it was the starting point on which Pecco would hasten his increasingly unlikely charge to fight for the world championship. The other six victories he scored, four of them in a row, ultimately confirmed that his diagnosis of the engine was correct, an impression ratified by the annoyance of Martin and Zarco who had to continue to run the more aggressive full-spec 2022 motor.

Given the high level of Bastianini throughout the season, however, one wonders what would have happened if Bagnaia had run with the same engine used by the Rimini rider, his new team-mate for 2023. Asked directly about it, Bagnaia chooses his words carefully - and again pulls that emotional intelligence that 10 months ago already led him to get what he wanted without motivating any conflict.

"I'm just the rider. These decisions are up to the team. I don't go into that. Surely, to have gone out with the bike that won the last races of 2021 would have been better, but I don't know if I would have been able to win so much and so often."

MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Ducati Corse