Pressure doesn’t seem to matter to Bagnaia, the opposite happens to the Spaniard. But as long as the MotoGP remains in the hands of the Spaniards…
Since it has existed, MotoGP has been the speed derby between Italy and Spain. From 2002 onwards – apart from the Australian phenomenon Casey Stoner and the isolated flashes of the American Nicky Hayden and the French Fabio Quartararo – the roll of honor is occupied only by Italians and Spaniards. The Italy of Valentino Rossi first and then of Francesco Bagnaia. Ducati’s Italy which has overtaken the giants of Japan and Aprilia which is growing and proposing itself as the second force in the World Championship. In front of the Spain of Jorge Lorenzo, Joan Mir and above all Marc Marquez, the Honda rider who until 2019 made the phenomenon between feats and controversies. Spain that doesn’t have big manufacturers, but big sponsors. Starting with Repsol which has always bet heavily on Marquez, the rider who – together with Lorenzo – made the Spaniards discover the sweet taste of victory against the myth Rossi. With Sete Gibernau and Daniel Pedrosa they were used to always losing…
another movie
—
Yesterday we saw another film compared to those duels – sometimes dirty but almost always shiny – between Marc and Vale. Perhaps because Rossi was still on the track or perhaps because the Marquez seen at work in the first race of the season in Portugal doesn’t even look like the distant relative of that champion who made us angry but whom we could not but admire for his courage and class with which he crumbled his opponents and Rossi’s records. Injuries, falls, frequent stops, have reset him, downwards, to other levels. And so the MotoGP premiere party, a secular ritual that we never tire of celebrating, was ruined after a handful of kilometres. Marquez – the most titled, the one who should lead by example – invented a clumsy joke. And on the third lap he committed an amateurish folly, a strike with the bikes and bodies of his opponents: a blow to Jorge Martin’s Ducati and a knockout blow to Miguel Oliveira.
Italy-Spain
—
And what does Italy-Spain have to do with all this? It does come in. Because, having taken note of Marquez’s immediate apologies, one cannot turn a blind eye: the MotoGP is still a (nice) toy in the hands of the Spanish Dorna. She reminded us of this with the ridiculous penalty inflicted on the national hero Marc: two long laps in the next grand prix in Argentina. The Portimao incident ends with a pat but does not solve the problem. Because even the Honda rider came out battered from the accident he caused himself. And now he will have to deal with two more wounds: one on the body and another on the reputation. He suffered a suspected fracture in his right hand which, even if he puts it in doubt for the Argentine Grand Prix, will surely heal. But it’s the other invisible disfigurement that worries us and seems destined to leave traces in an increasingly tactical MotoGP where his head matters more than his wrist.
serenity sin
—
Pecco Bagnaia knows this well, and he immediately proved it, as he started the season with the serenity of the strongest, with the number 1 on the fairing. He drives without performance anxiety, seizes the right moment to sting his rivals, moves away from them and becomes an elusive silhouette. Becoming the man to beat does not weigh on him. Indeed, he gives them wings. The opposite of what is happening to Marc Marquez, a prisoner of his past. He won eight world titles and Rossi’s nine are perhaps becoming his obsession with him. And so the driver that everyone feared, who “passed over the ears of his rivals”, now on the track begins to generate another type of fear. Among those around him, however, appears resignation. The same that was there yesterday on the bewildered faces of the men in the Honda box framed a few seconds after the accident. At thirty, Marquez must get out of it quickly, for himself, for others and to keep the MotoGP derby alive.
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
