Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1457907
I s it just me, or did the 2022 MotoGP season roll around quicker than ever? It seems only last week we were farewel- ling Mr. Rossi after 84 years, or whatever it was, of MotoGP racing. Fast forward four months and last weekend, Rossi be- came a father to little Giulietta, the new season of MotoGP had a decidedly fresh flavor to it with Enea Bastianini pulling one of the greatest rides in recent memory to take his first MotoGP win. While many were surprised by Bastianini's victory, the fact that he put a two-year-old Ducati on the podium twice last year should give a fair indication that it really wasn't very far off. Casual observers will note these podiums came at his home track of Misano, a venue he's ridden more laps around than he's had P140 CN III LOWSIDE BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS The eye of The Beast. Bastianini firmly announced his arrival at Qatar. hot dinners, but he still hunted down some big names (including one on a factory Ducati) to do it. Preseason testing gave an- other indication of Bastianini's speed as he topped the Malay- sian test at Sepang, just edging out Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro, who had one of the best tests of his lengthy MotoGP career on the Aprilia. He continued this with sec- ond on the grid at Qatar, 0.147 seconds behind pole-sitter Jorge Martin, and after a slug- gish start, began to march his way inexorably forward to take a commanding victory after Pol Espargaro ran off track mere seconds after losing the lead. A quick look at the times when compared to last year shows the breadth of Bastianini's progress. In his first race in MotoGP in Qatar, the then current Moto2 World Champion finished a very credible 10th on debut, finish- ing 9.2 seconds down on race winner Maverick Vinales, who clocked an overall race time of 42:28.663 on his factory Yamaha. In 2022, Bastianini not only won the race by running a 15.465 seconds faster race time than Vinales did last year at 42:13.198, but he improved by a whopping 24.753 seconds over- all compared to his 10th-place finish the year prior. There're a few reasons for this. The first and most obvious is Bastianini now has argu- ably the most sorted motor- cycle on the grid in the Ducati Desmosedici GP21, the same motorcycle that propelled Pecco Bagnaia to four wins in the clos- ing stages of the 2021 season and Jack Miller to two wins in