Francesco Bagnaia ensured the Italian Grand Prix was exciting for the first two corners. Then Bagnaia ensured that it wasn’t. There’s something about the combination of the reigning MotoGP world champion, his home race and Ducati that just clicks, and turns the annual visit to one of the sport’s signature circuits into an inevitable march to the top step of the podium.
For the past three years, Bagnaia has been headed for eight laps – total – at Mugello, and they all came in 2022. His latest Sunday masterclass breathed new life into a world championship fight that Jorge Martin still leads, but in far less convincing fashion than eight days earlier, when Bagnaia inexplicably crashed out of the sprint race at the Catalan Grand Prix, spotting the Spaniard a 44-point lead in the standings. Come Sunday night, as the 81,000-strong crowd – the biggest since Valentino Rossi’s heyday at his home track – filed out into the night, Bagnaia’s deficit to Martin had been slashed to 18 points, and there’s a distinct feeling that the back-to-back world champion has begun to find a groove that has proven irresistible for the past two seasons.
World champion strikes early to keep Mugello run rolling Aussie concedes being dumped by KTM for Acosta is ‘logical’ Bagnaia’s Mugello momentum isn’t quite the dominance of Marc Marquez in Germany (eight straight wins from 2013), Rossi’s own run at Mugello from 2002-08, or Casey Stoner’s mastery of Phillip Island for six ye.
