MotoGP: Bagnaia, Bastianini shine in tense Misano showdown

Rain had been an ever-present factor when MotoGP visited the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli for the first time in 2021. The championship is due to go back later this year in October, but the annual Gran Premio di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini was unusually rain-hit. 

Forecasts predicted rain throughout on Sunday, and particularly from 14:00, which is the start time for the MotoGP class. After the Moto2 race there were spots, but by 2pm the track was still dry, and there was no question about whether to pick wet or dry tyres.

That did not mean there were guarantees, however. The choice between rear tyres was significant, and all had been tried throughout the weekend. The V4 bikes seemed to prefer the soft-option rear tyre, but the inline-4 bikes favoured the medium. 

Francesco Bagnaia started from pole position, having set a new lap record in qualifying on Saturday. It was his second pole position in the space of a week having also ended Saturday as fastest in Aragon. There, Jack Miller and Fabio Quartararo started alongside him on the first row, and it remained the case in Misano. 

Both Bagnaia and Miller had chosen the soft-compound rear tyre for the 27-lap race, and Quartararo the medium option. In FP4, after 16 laps on a soft tyre, Bagnaia had been half-a-second slower than Quartararo on a medium-compound with the same amount of laps. It was clear that Bagnaia would have the speed early on, but would that pace last? As for Quartararo, the questions revolved around his ability to get past the two Ducatis ahead of him, as doing so early would allow him the clear track to impose his pace. 

Bagnaia reached the first corner in the lead, having timed perfectly his start. It was perhaps too perfect, but I am writing this on Wednesday and the only people to have mentioned it are, relatively speaking, inconsequential.

Miller was able to help out his teammate early on by passing Quartararo for second in turn three. The move was tough and allowed Bagnaia to escape slightly early on. The Italians lead was one second as they ended the first lap, and as Jorge Martin looked to put his Ducati third overall. 

Martin’s early charge ended- early. He crashed at turn 14 on a medium front tyre while chasing Quartararo. Most had chosen the hard, but the medium seemed a smart choice for Martin, considering the relatively low track temperatures before the start of the race caused by the cloud cover. But, by the end of the race, the top medium-front finisher was Joan Mir in sixth, who said his front tyre choice was a mistake and that the result was the signal of the end of his title defence.

Free from the chains of Martin, Quartararo set on after Jack Miller. He had cut the gap to under one second when he was dragged into a mistake by the Australian, who ran wide in turn 13 on lap eight. By the end of the race, this mistake would become magnified.

The run-ons for both Miller and Quartararo gave Bagnaia an extra 1.5 seconds, and his lead was approaching three seconds before Quartararo finally passed Miller on lap 14. 

The move from the Frenchman was truly superb, almost artistic. He carried more speed through the double rights of turns four and five, and that allowed him to take the inside at the left-hander of turn six. It was a move not entirely dissimilar to the one tried twice by Marc Marquez at Aragon on Bagnaia a week before, where the rider with the slower bike tried to catch the one in front, with more horsepower, off-guard in the corner before the longest straight. Turn six in Misano is quite different to turn 15 in MotorLand, however: the former is taken in third gear, and riders cut the kerb in the middle, flirting with track limits on the exit because the corner speed is so high in that turn. On the contrary, turn 15 in Aragon is first or second gear, one of the slowest corners on the circuit and one where the speed mid-corner is sacrificed to be able to get the bike stood up and driving onto the kilometer-long back straight. 

The speed of turn six in Misano made Quartararo’s move both easier, because any disruption to Miller would have a greater effect, and harder, because the #20 himself had to be more precise. 

The Frenchman nailed it, though, taking away Miller’s line in the middle of the corner, thus compromising the Australian’s run out of turn six and through the flat-out turn seven. Then, Quartararo darted to the inside of turn seven, forcing Miller to the outside, and giving him no options to attack in turn eight. Additionally, Quartararo was able to make his perfect line through turn eight, whereas Miller had to adjust his based on where Quartararo was, so the Ducati rider was too far to attack at turns nine and 10. A good exit from turn 10 – combined with the fact that Miller was beginning to suffer from a vibration on his rear tyre – and a strong run through turns 11, 12 and 13 put him out of reach for the dead-stop turn 14 hairpin, and that was second place secured for the World Championship leader. 

While Quartararo escaped with second place, both factory Ducati riders were about to understand that their races were not over. For Bagnaia, his championship rival Quartararo was closing from behind, while Miller’s deteriorating rear tyre was dragging him into the clutches of Enea Bastianini, Marc Marquez and Joan Mir. 

Bastianini had passed Marquez on lap six, and immediately set about hammering in fastest laps of the race. Indeed, the #23 would find himself with the official race fastest lap by the end of the race, and on the podium, having passed Jack Miller for third at turn 13 on lap 19. It was a fantastic ride from Bastianini, especially on a two-year-old Desmosedici, and one in which he held onto a soft-compound rear tyre for longer than anyone else. No one was faster at the end of the race than Bastianini, and it could be said that he could have fought for the win with Bagnaia and Quartararo had he qualified on the first two rows – which he was scheduled to do before running wide at Curvone on his fastest lap. 

Instead, Bastianini started 12th so, while he had a better pace at the end than either Quartararo or Bagnaia, he was too far detached to make use of it. Quartararo, though, was in prime position. 

The Frenchman had caught his Italian rival with three laps to go, but entering the final lap had so far been unable to mount an attack. It was a fascinating battle, because Bagnaia had clearly run out of grip. There was a huge line around the left side of the rear tyre on the #63 Ducati, and Quartararo was able to exploit his grip advantage through the left-handers. 

Through the rights, though, Bagnaia was still strong, so pulling the same move he had put on Miller was not an option for Quartararo. An additional challenge was that Bagnaia’s braking performance through turns 12 and 13 was exceptional, and unmatchable for Quartararo. That meant the Frenchman could not attack into turn 14. 

In the end Bagnaia did enough to clinch the win in what was an intense cold war that never quite sparked. There was the constant threat of Quartararo throughout the final 10 laps, and especially the last three once he had caught Bagnaia, but as in Aragon the factory Ducati rider was impeccable in defence. 

While Bagnaia led every lap, as in MotorLand, and was never headed, unlike in MotorLand, the lap chart does not tell the full story of the race, in which a rider won under the pressure of a home race for both himself and his manufacturer, as well as the pressure of expectation built up over the course of the weekend; in which a rider overcame the hurdle of his motorcycle’s relative inferiority to take nine positions and stand on his hime Grand Prix podium; and in which a rider battled back from a difficult start to the weekend, where the motorcycle was not working, to finish with a second place and 20 vital World Championship points. 

Four rounds remain, and with Texas next up there are 48 points between Bagnaia and Quartararo. It is a lot, but the US circuit should suit both Ducati and Yamaha to similar degrees, although part of the surface remains an unknown for all.