FEATURE – Pecco Bagnaia’s 2023 MotoGP Championship

Words: Mike Ryan

Photos: Ducati Corse, MotoGP

The 2023 MotoGP season was one of the hardest fought and most action-packed ever. The introduction of the Saturday sprint races added a new dimension to the championship, bringing new opportunities to score points – as well as lose them. Ultimately, Ducati Lenovo Team’s Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia backed up his first premier class title in 2022 to take the 2023 MotoGP World Championship.

Bagnaia's first world championship in the premier class was remarkable for the fact he overcame a 91-point deficit midway through the season to deny Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing’s Fabio Quartararo the chance of back-to-back titles. In 2023, it was Bagnaia’s turn to be the hunted.

While all riders in the 2023 MotoGP World Championship started equally, some were more equal than others, with the title contenders considered to be Bagnaia, 2022 Rookie of the Year, Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati) and Bagnaia’s new team mate Enea Bastianini, who was buoyant after taking four wins in 2022 - only his second year in the premier class.

Few experts were predicting Jorge Martin of Prima Pramac Racing Ducati would be challenging for the title, given the Spaniard went winless in 2022. Martin also had a propensity for crashing, as evidenced by five DNFs in the 2022 season and missing eight races due to crashes or injury in 2021.  

Fewer still were expecting Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) would recapture the magic that had eluded him since his last world title in 2019. A wretched 2022 season, interrupted by a fourth surgery on the arm he fractured in 2020, was made worse by the fact that Honda’s RC213V was now outclassed at most tracks by the Ducati Desmosedici (eight of which were on the 2023 grid), Aprilia’s RS-GP and even KTM’s RC16.

Yamaha was in a similar malaise to Honda, but Quartararo couldn’t be discounted from causing a few upsets. Other potential wildcards for 2023 included Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing), who had enjoyed a breakthrough 2022 season, and Alex Rins, who was now with LCR Honda after Team Suzuki Ecstar exited the premier class. The Red Bull KTM Factory Racing squad, made up of Brad Binder and former Ducati factory rider Jack Miller, was also expected to pinch a win or two.

The big unknown for 2023 was the sprint race. Borrowed from both World Superbikes and Formula 1, this new feature on the MotoGP schedule consisted of a race of approximately half the normal grand prix distance, with half points awarded, on the Saturday of a race weekend.

As race management and tyre conservation didn’t need to be factored in for the sprint, there were concerns some riders would kamikaze their way through the field. As such, not everyone on the MotoGP grid were fans of the sprint, most notably Quartararo.

With all this in mind, here are the six key moments on the path to Bagnaia’s second MotoGP World Championship.

Moment #1 – Round 1, Portimao

If Bagnaia was under pressure as defending champion, he didn’t show it in the season opener. Marc Marquez took pole, giving some hope that the six-time MotoGP Champion was back, but Bagnaia was victorious in both the sprint and the grand prix. Defeating Martin and Marquez in the former, Bagnaia led home Maverick Vinales (Aprilia Racing) and Bezzecchi in the latter.

Bagnaia’s perfect start to the 2023 season was in contrast to 2022, when it took the Italian six rounds to record his first win. The change could be attributed, in part, to Bagnaia’s strong pre-season testing programme, where the Italian gelled with the Desmosedici GP23 almost instantly. In 2022, Bagnaia struggled with the GP22 and ran a bike that was closer to GP21 spec for the early part of the season.

Martin failed to complete the grand prix race, but the Spaniard’s second place finish in the sprint was a sign of things to come…

Moment #2 – Round 5, Le Mans

The 1,000th GP to be held since the beginning of the world championship in 1949 generated a lot of noise, both in the lead up to and during the race weekend. The noise didn’t seem to affect Bagnaia, as he claimed pole and finished third in the sprint behind Martin and Binder. Reflecting Bagnaia’s slow start to 2022, the sprint win was Martin’s first victory for 2023.

In the grand prix, contact between Bagnaia and Vinales put both riders into the gravel trap and led to an ugly alteraction between the pair. Vinales was unharmed, but Bagnaia suffered minor fractures and ligament damage in his left wrist and right foot.

At this stage, Bagnaia’s championship defence looked like it was starting to unravel. Three crashes in the first five rounds were bad enough, but all three had been in the grand prix races, so did more damage in terms of lost points than similar DNFs would have done in the sprints.

Bezzecchi won the grand prix at Le Mans, moving him to within a single point of Bagnaia – 93 points to 94. Martin, who finished second in the grand prix, improved his championship position from seventh to fourth to be 14 points in arrears. How would Bagnaia respond?

In the following round at Mugello, the defending champion won both the sprint and grand prix, turning a one-point advantage into 21 points, while Martin’s second place in the grand prix moved him to third overall ahead of Binder.

Moment #3 – Round 11, Catalunya

Catalunya has been something of a bogey track for Bagnaia, even going back to his days in Moto3 and Moto2. In the premier class, Bagnaia’s best at Catalunya had been a sixth in 2020. He failed to finish in 2019 and was caught up in a multi-rider crash on the opening lap in 2022.

This time, Bagnaia came to Catalunya after dominating the Austrian round – pole, sprint win, GP win and fastest lap. Starting strongly, the Italian qualified on pole, then finished a solid second in the sprint behind Espargaro. But just when it seemed like Bagnaia had got the better of Catalunya, the track bit back.

At the start of the grand prix, five riders crashed out at the first corner. Bagnaia avoided that drama, but a dramatic highside coming out of turn two sent the Italian skyward. When he returned to earth, Binder ran over his legs as he lay on the track, bringing out the red flag. A lower leg fracture would have essentially ended Bagnaia’s season right there, but incredibly, he suffered only cuts and bruises, and was able to grid up – in some pain - for the next round at Misano a week later. It could have been much, much worse.

Bezzecchi had been injured in the five-rider crash on the opening lap, so could only muster a twelfth in the restarted grand prix.  This, combined with DNFs in the previous two rounds, meant he slipped to third in the championship and Martin was now Bagnaia’s main challenger.

Bagnaia had been leading the championship by 66 points after the sprint at Catalunya, but that margin was cut to 50 when Martin finished third in the grand prix behind Espargaro and Vinales.

Moment #4 – Round 15, Mandalika

Martin’s charge to deliver the first premier class world title to a satellite team since Valentino Rossi at Nastro Azzurro Honda in 2001 seemed unstoppable. The Spaniard had won the sprint/grand prix double at both Misano and Motegi, as well as the sprint at Buddh in India. As such, he had cut Bagnaia’s championship lead from 50 points after Catalunya to just three.

Pole went to Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team), while both championship protagonists struggled in qualifying – Martin was sixth fastest and Bagnaia couldn’t even advance out of Q1, so started from 13th on the grid.

In the sprint, Martin took his fourth consecutive victory in the short format, while Bagnaia only advanced a few places from his lowly qualifying spot, finishing eighth. That meant Martin now led the championship for the first time in the 2023 season, but his glory lasted less than 24 hours.

In the grand prix, the Spaniard crashed out on lap 13 of 27 while holding a commanding lead of more than three seconds. This handed the advantage back to Bagnaia, who had charged through the field and won what was arguably his most important race of the entire season. To find a better performance than 13th to first in a dry race, you have to go all the way back to 2006, when Marco Melandri won the Turkish GP from 14th on the grid. More importantly for Bagnaia, the win meant he took an 18-point championship lead to the next round in Australia.

Moment #5 – Round 16, Phillip Island

This was almost two moments in one, when tyre choice and weather combined to increase Bagnaia’s advantage in the championship.

Despite poor lap times in Free Practice and having to graduate through Qualifying 1 to make it to Q2 (a constant for the Italian this season), Bagnaia nevertheless found himself on the front row of the grid, but Martin was on pole.

With the grand prix moved to the Saturday, due to the threat of wild weather on the Sunday, Martin got the holeshot and bolted away from the field in the opening laps, thanks to his soft rear tyre. This was a gamble in a 27-lap race, reflected in the fact that only one other rider chose the soft rear over the medium.

While Martin’s advantage was immediate (more than a second ahead after three laps), Bagnaia was part of a chasing pack that included Binder, Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Racing MotoGP) and Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac Racing). Two seconds ahead by lap 7 and more than three seconds ahead by lap 13, it appeared that Martin’s gamble had paid off, even when he started coming back to the field on lap 20.

With three laps to go, Martin’s advantage was still more than two seconds, but his rear tyre dropped off dramatically after that. Despite leading the field across the line for the final lap, first Zarco then Bagnaia, Di Giannantonio and Binder all passed the Spaniard, relegating him to fifth at the chequered flag. Bagnaia, who was in third place at the start of the final lap, finished second.

Had Martin won and Bagnaia finished third, he would have cut the championship gap to 9 points. As it was, the Italian's advantage increased to 27 points with four rounds remaining.

Martin most likely would have clawed some points back in the sprint, but the short race was abandoned due to weather, further benefitting Bagnaia.

Moment #6 – Round 20, Valencia

After almost throwing away a podium finish in the previous round at Qatar, Bagnaia came to the 2023 MotoGP season finale with a 21-point lead over Martin.

Normally, 21 points would all but guarantee the championship, but thanks to the sprints, season 2023 had 37 points on offer per round instead of the usual 25. Bagnaia clearly held the advantage, but could he handle the pressure? The 2022 season had seen Quartararo crumble under the demands of defending a title. Would Bagnaia do the same?

Having to go through Q1 yet again, Bagnaia qualified second on the grid, but Martin was in a lowly sixth. While Bagnaia could be conservative, Martin needed to win, which he duly did in the sprint, finishing just ahead of Binder. A fifth place result for Bagnaia meant his championship lead had been cut to 14 points ahead of the grand prix.

In a season that delivered plenty of twists, a few more were still to come, including a three-place grid penalty for Vinales after the Sunday warm-up that elevated Bagnaia to pole for the grand prix. The Italian got the holeshot, but Martin was on his tail within the first few corners. On lap three, a bold overtaking attempt saw Martin clip the back of Bagnaia and run wide, rejoining the field in eighth. Three laps later, while attempting to recover those lost positions, Martin came together with Marquez, sending both into the gravel and out of the race.

The championship was over, but the race wasn’t. With the notification of Martin’s exit on his pitboard, Bagnaia may have lost focus, as Binder and Miller passed him. But after Binder ran wide and Miller crashed, Bagnaia was back in the lead and held it to the chequered flag to wrap up his second premier class championship in the best possible way.

“I’m super happy. More than this is impossible, also because we won the race, so it’s fantastic,” Bagnaia said. “I want to say a big thanks to all the team - they did an amazing job. From [Catalunya], it was quite tough for us, but we deserved this title more than anyone.”

Harder than it Looked

The final margin of 39 points makes Bagnaia’s championship seem easier than it actually was. The reality is that any championship defence is very hard. In the 75-year history of 500cc/MotoGP racing, just thirteen riders have managed to win successive titles, with only two of those in the MotoGP era – Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi. Bagnaia is also the first ever rider in the premier class to go back-to-back on a Ducati and the first to successfully defend the #1 plate since Mick Doohan in 1997/98

As proven by the fact the championship wasn’t secured until the final round, Bagnaia never dominated, fending off first Bezzecchi, then Martin. But aside from those 24 hours at Mandalika, the Italian always led the championship. Having gone through a similar scenario in 2022, Bagnaia was arguably better prepared for the pressures that came throughout the 2023 season.

The challenge for Bagnaia now is whether he can join even more exalted company by winning three world championships in a row.