MotoGP: Pecco Bagnaia wins with another favor from Ducati and is one breath away from being champion

The Italian celebrates the victory with his teammate Enea Bastianini behind while Fabio Quartararo saves the World Cup with a third place

• classification How goes the World Cup
• previous race The day of Fabio Quartararo’s disaster: Pecco Bagnaia can already be champion

Ay! Oops! Oh! Oops!, and so on and on, in a perfect definition of this World Cup. I won ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia in Malaysia and throughout the race there was a partner of his, Enea Bastianini, who did not want to overtake him. It already happened in Thailand and Australia. Ducati’s dominance this season is directly proportional to the show offered. The title of champion was at stake and there was hardly any tension, overtaking, entertainment. The best: that the championship is still alive. The worst: that in the last race in Cheste, on Sunday, November 6, it will be very, very, very difficult to get the emotion going.

Numbers are against uncertainty. ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia leads with 23 points fabio quartararo so be champion barring disaster. There will only be surprise if the Frenchman wins and the Italian finishes fifteenth or worse. A chimera. Not so much because of Bagnaia’s possible failure, an option, nerves always betray, it already happened to Valentino Rossi in 2006. More because of the difficulties of Quartararo, who has not won a race since June, who suffers a lot in Cheste and who is overwhelmed by the superiority of Ducati.

This Sunday in Malaysia his success was surviving. Three Ducati riders escaped ahead, Jorge MartinBagnaia and Bastianini and Quartararo, after overtaking Marc Mrquezhad only one mission: to escape from more Ducati riders, especially from Marco Bezzecchi. If he surpassed him, alirn de Bagnaia. If I beat him, the year was over. But he endured, he endured the Frenchman despite his hand injury and the fall in front of Martn prevented a last favor from a teammate to Bagnaia. The World Cup is alive, although at the same time it is almost, almost, almost not.

“There have been nerves, there have been nerves,” acknowledged the Ducati sports director, Paolo Ciabatti, on DAZN after the tension in the brand wall. The cameras focused there before the track: it was more interesting. In an instant, with still seven laps to go, Bastianini timidly passed Bagnaia and the Ducati representatives went wild to calm down soon after, with Bagnaia returning to first place. Then the celebration began. And so until Sunday November 6 in Cheste.