Bagnaia Comes Through To Take Home Race Win At Mugello
Calum Gill 14:23 29/05/2022
Francesco Bagnaia put the disappointment of his early crash in last year’s MotoGP Italian Grand Prix behind him to take a home victory at Mugello for Ducati.
Bagnaia felt his lap one fall while leading in Italy a year ago was crucial in his eventual championship defeat to Fabio Quartararo, and put the 2021 crash down to not being fully focused following the death of Jason Dupasquier in a Moto3 crash the previous day. This time Bagnaia made no such mistakes as he led Quartararo home by 0.635 seconds to take a second victory in three races. After the wild circumstances of Saturday’s wet/dry qualifying session, likely race-pace benchmarks Bagnaia, Quartararo and Aleix Espargaró had to try to make quick progress from fifth through seventh on grid. Surprise front row trio Fabio Di Giannantonio, Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini held on well, swapping the lead between all three of them through lap one before VR46 duo Bezzecchi and Marini established themselves in a brief VR46 team 1-2 on its home ground in the first Italian MotoGP race since team figurehead Valentino Rossi’s retirement from racing.
Espargaró made the most assertive early progress of the race day favourites before Quartararo and Bagnaia outstripped him. Yamaha’s lack of straightline speed didn’t do Quartararo many favours, and Bagnaia was able to pass both the championship leader and Marini in one move down the main straight. Bezzecchi held onto the lead for over one-third of the race before Bagnaia managed to squeeze ahead under braking into the first corner. He didn’t manage to make much of a break before Quartararo reached second, but had enough pace to keep the Yamaha at a safe distance until the chequered flag. Espargaró eventually made it past Bezzecchi too to complete the podium, with Johann Zarco’s Pramac Ducati doing likewise to take fourth ahead of Bezzecchi and Marini.
Poleman Di Giannantonio drifted right back to 11th, which was still his best finish in MotoGP, claiming it in a photo finish with Maverick Viñales’ Aprilia. Brad Binder scorched from 16th to seventh on lap one, and managed to finish there as the best KTM. Takaaki Nakagami was the top Honda for LCR in eighth ahead of Miguel Oliveira’s KTM, with the factory Honda of Marc Márquez a muted 10th and team-mate Pol Espargaró crashing from the midfield early on. Suzuki had a second consecutive terrible race. Álex Rins and Joan Mir made no real progress from their lowly qualifying positions and then both crashed within minutes of each other. It was a bad day for several of Ducati’s usual lead contenders. Title protagonist Enea Bastianini crashed out, Jack Miller fell to nearly last on lap one and finished 15th, and Jorge Martín set a new MotoGP speed trap record of 226mph but couldn’t do better than 13th place.
