With just two races remaining in the MotoGP season, it goes down to the wire with Italy’s Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia now in the driving seat.
It will make for an exciting couple of final races to wrap up the season and we know we’re in for an exciting run to the finish.
As Bagnaia wrapped up the Australian GP in third place at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit at the weekend, the Ducati Lenovo Team rider had finally succeeded in his comeback, accomplishing a feat never achieved in the top class.
Bagnaia was 91 points behind series leader Fabio Quatararo after round 10 of the series, the German GP at Sachsenring, and now, after just eight more races, he is the new leader of the championship with a 14-point lead over the French Yamaha rider and with just two races to go.
As he was starting from third on the grid in Australia, Bagnaia took the lead of the race on lap 15 and remained there until the last lap, when Honda’s multi-time champion Marc Marquez and fellow Spaniard Alex Rins passed him, Rins taking the GP win.
With Sunday’s third place, Bagnaia brings to nine the number of podiums obtained this season.
For his Australian team-mate Jack Miller, however, the home race had an unfortunate ending.
Starting from eighth on the grid, Miller had managed to climb back up to the group fighting third, but on lap nine, while sitting in fifth place, Alex Marquez bumped into his bike, and they both crashed.
The accident left no physical consequences for Miller, who was forced to retire. Despite that, he remains fifth in the overall standings, 54 points behind team-mate Bagnaia.
Marco Bezzecchi, rider for the VR46 Racing Team, wins the Rookie of the Year title thanks to his fourth-place finish on Sunday.
The Ducati Lenovo Team, on the other hand, is one step away from winning the Teams’ World Title in the premier class for the second year in a row; the Italian team is first, with a lead of 84 points over the second, in the teams’ classification when there are two races left to the end of the season.
“I am satisfied with the third place today, but the most important thing is that we are finally first in the championship,” said Bagnaia.
“I only regret not being able to win because I did my best.
“In the first laps, I tried to manage the tyre consumption well, but towards the end, I didn’t have the same pace anymore, and I was still struggling with the front.
“When I saw that Quartararo was out, I changed my approach and just tried to have a smart race, avoiding unnecessary risks, to try to take advantage of the situation.
“The next GP will be in Malaysia, a track where we are usually fast, so there are all the conditions to do well there.”
Photo courtesy Ducati
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2022 MotoGP World Championship Standings:
- Francesco Bagnaia – Ducati Lenovo Team, 233 points
- Fabio Quartararo – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP, 219 points
- Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia Racing, 206 points
- Enea Bastianini – Gresini Racing MotoGP, 191 points
- Jack Miller – Ducati Lenovo Team, 179 points
- Brad Binder – Red Bull Factory KTM Racing, 160 points
- Johann Zarco – Prima Pramac Racing, 159 points
- Alex Rins – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR, 137 points
- Jorge Martin – Prima Pramac Racing, 136 points
- Miguel Oliveira – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, 135 points
- Maverick Viñales – Aprilia Racing, 122 points
- Luca Marini – Mooney VR46 Racing Team, 111 points
- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team, 104 points
- Marco Bezzecchi – Mooney VR46 Racing Team, 93 points
- Joan Mir – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR, 77 points
- Pol Espargaro – Repsol Honda Team, 54 points
- Alex Marquez – LCR Honda CASTROL, 50 points
- Takaaki Nakagami – LCR Honda IDEMITSU, 46 points
- Franco Morbidelli – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP, 31 points
- Fabio Di Giannantionio – Gresini Racing, 23 points
- Andrea Dovizioso – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team, 15 points
- Darryn Binder – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team, 12 points
- Remy Gardner – Tech3 KTM Factory Racing, 10 points
- Raul Fernandez – Tech3 KTM Factory Racing, 9 points
- Cal Crutchlow – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team, 6 points
- Stefan Bradl – Repsol Honda Team, 0 points
- Michele Pirro – Aruba.it Racing, 0 points
- Lorenzo Savadori – Aprilia Racing, 0 points
- Tetsuta Nagashima – LCR Honda IDEMITSU, 0 points
- Danilo Petrucci – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR, 0 points
- Kazuki Watanabe – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR, 0 points