The good guy at Ducati, or the best, is Enea Bastianini, who in the French GP has won his third victory of the year. Almost nothing for a satellite rider, who rides last year’s bike and who still hasn’t decided on his future, by risking the free seat in the official team with Jorge Martín, to be a teammate Francesco Bagnaia, whom he unhinged at Le Mans when at times it seemed that it would be the winner of Jerez who would take victory on this track.
The beast He started fifth from the grid, moved up to second at the start, fell to fourth place and, slowly but surely, began his steady comeback towards the lead of the race and subsequent victory. Carlo Pernat’s pupil first benefited from Rins’ crash when he was third on lap three. He then locked onto the wheel of Miller, who led for the first three laps, but only until Pecco passed him without showing any opposition. It is as if the Australian had assumed that the leader in the official Ducati box is the Italian yes or yes. The thing is that Bastianini, who doesn’t know about official drivers and satellites, stuck to Jack’s wheel and blew it out on the twelfth lap. From then on, nothing but Bagnaia lay ahead of him, for which he had a plan…
The Gresini team rider gradually cut the tenths that the Jerez winner was leading, and it was on lap 21 when he unleashed his attack. La Bestia overtook Pecco on the first variant of the chicane (Turn 3) and the official turned the maneuver back on the satellite just two turns later. Far from being a definitive counterattack, the Italian sneaked in two turns later, in turn 8, and opened the doors wide for Enea to take the lead. Nine tenths Pecco lost in that action and he wanted to recover them crazy too fast, because before finishing the lap he went to the ground in the penultimate turn. From there to the finish line, Bastianini’s triumphant walk, to receive the flag with a 2.7 advantage over Miller.
The podium was closed by Aleix Espargaró with his Aprilia and a couple of noses, because he was able to stop the push of the great local hero, a Quartararo, who wanted to greet the 110,003 spectators who packed the French track to bursting from the third step. By the way, it was a spectacle to hear them sing La Marseillaise before the race started. Goosebumps even without being French.
The two of them favored each other to win a place from Mir’s fall when he was running fourth. He was only 0.5 away from the fight and thus ended a dismal weekend for Suzuki, the same factory that confirmed on Thursday in a lukewarm statement that he will leave the World Championship at the end of the season. Is it a Karma thing? Luckily, nothing happened to Mir or Rins, and that Álex had a bad crash, because he went after doing motocross through the escape area of the chicane and returned to the asphalt too quickly with the bike misaligned.
The one who also benefited from the three crashes ahead of him to gain positions was Marc Márquez who finished sixth, four seconds behind Zarco and fifteen from the head. These are bad times for the eight-time world champion, because this Honda that promised so much in the pre-season tests is turning out to be a lout that is very difficult to get into the curves. Even so, the Repsol Honda rider managed to leave one of the race’s runs, when he overtook Nakagami and Quartararo in the turn from entry to the finish line. They got tangled up between the Japanese and the Frenchman, who came off slightly, and gave both of them a good sanding with the bike on the ground.
For Marc, a race in the rain or from flag to flag would have been much better, but it rained at the wrong time based on his interests, at the start of the Moto3 race and not in the MotoGP race. 48 are now the points that Quartararo takes from him at the head of the general classification, a pilot who ended up frustrated for being only fourth in front of his people. His consolation is that he is still in the lead, but now with three points less advantage, because Aleix is now second only four away. The third is Bastianini, to eight, and, having seen what has been seen, it will be necessary to count on him seriously in key to the title, because he has three victories out of seven possible and does not tire of it being the day of The Beast.
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