Francesco Bagnaia’s face in the post-race press conference at Phillip Island on Sunday, after finishing third in MotoGP’s Australian Grand Prix, was the best imaginable projection of the 10 seconds that separated him from the victorious Marc Marquez and runner-up Jorge Martin.
Reigning two-time champion Bagnaia’s gesture was one of concern, a logical reaction considering that Marquez created that gap over him despite losing ground at the start when he ran over the plastic visor that he himself had just thrown to the ground. That mishap cost him 12 positions and put him back in 13th, before he staged one of the best recoveries in recent memory to claim his third grand prix win of the season.
Leaving the Desmosedici’s obvious potential aside, another key factor that led Marquez to forgo the final year of his multi-million dollar Honda contract to sign with a Ducati satellite team for 2024 was the sophistication of the protocols used by the Borgo Panigale brand to increase the overall performance of the eight bikes it currently has.
The computers that receive the information downloaded from the bikes each time they return to the garage send this data to a server, to which the authorised technicians of each team have access. Not only does this operation take place in near real-time, but it is also combined with sophisticated analysis tools, including artificial intelligence, with a very high capacity for interpretation. With this in mind, it is much easier to understand the leaps in quality made by certain riders, both from Friday to Saturday and from Saturday to Sunday, when the sprint race becomes the best generator of all that information.
“We all know that Pecco will be there to win on Sunday. It doesn’t matter if he seems to suffer a little bit on Friday, because on Saturday he takes a step and on Sunday he takes another step,” says any member of the grid whenever he is asked.
However, in the context of a close duel like the current one, there are ways of camouflaging information to try and complicate that improvement a little. The last event in Australia was a case in point.
Bagnaia was a subdued third in the Australian GP, surpassed by Marquez after his sluggish launch
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The 10 seconds that split Marquez and Bagnaia’s factory bike on Sunday can be explained by several factors that aligned and worked against Ducati’s leading rider. First of all, the track had been…
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