VOLUME 59 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 13, 2022 P105
Perhaps most impressive was
that his biggest winning margin of
the season was 0.6 seconds.
"This year I was always with
a lot of pressure from behind,"
Bagnaia said. "Enea [Bastianini,
his 2023 factory Ducati team-
mate] was fast behind me, trying
to overtake and I was trying to
manage the situation. It's one
where you can easily lose your
concentration. But I think we
worked well. At [Valentino's]
Ranch, we are always together,
fighting like this, putting a lot of
pressure on each other. So, this
helps in these situations."
Yes, he made mistakes [he's
the first premier-class champ
in history with five DNFs to his
name]. But aside from a brainless
crash in Japan, he has stood
up to the most high-pressure
situations anyone could imagine.
Then there is the small matter
of the deficit he overcame. No
rider in 74 years of premier-class
competition has come back to
win from a 91-point deficit, a fact
that speaks to a deep reserve of
self-belief.
By doing so, Bagnaia smashed
Wayne Rainey's record for the
biggest comeback when the
American triumphed in 1992
despite being 65 points behind
Mick Doohan. This is the stand-
out point of his title and one that
will ensure it is remembered in
years to come.
"I just lost faith in the cham-
pionship for like one hour after
the race at the Sachsenring,"
said the champion of 2022 after
his race crash in Germany. "But
from that moment, I knew there
was still a chance. We tried to
analyze everything at home: what
to improve, why I was crashing,
why I was committing so many
mistakes. But from that moment,
we did something incredible."
A SHAKY START
Yet none of this seemed pos-
sible in the year's opening stage
ence of Valentino but all the guys, all the people
are working for us at home," he said. "At the start,
it was a totally different academy. It was a big help
for sure, but now we are very professional. We
can say, 'Today, I want
to go to a track with the
pocket bikes.' And they
organize everything to
do it. We say, 'We want
to go to Portimao to
have a test before the
season.' They organize
it. They are giving all the
possibility, all the pas-
sion to us, and this is incredible.
"At home, we work together. We push each oth-
er to improve ourselves. When I looked at Frankie
in 2020, finishing second in the championship,
it was like a reference to me.
Was something to improve or
something to beat. This helped
me a lot to improve myself."
Valentino Rossi gives up the spoils
to the new Italian hero and the first
graduate of the VR46 Academy to take
the MotoGP title, Bagnaia.
The VR46 brotherhood—Bagnaia (right)
with Uccio Salucci and Marco Bezzecchi.
